Making Math Make Sense Through Student Research and Real-World Learning

You’re sitting in a math class, staring at the board, and the same thought crosses your mind: when will I ever use this?

It’s a simple question, one that many students have asked themselves throughout decades. A question that clearly points to a larger disconnect between how math is taught and how it shows up in everyday life. For JEP Program Assistant Jeb Wu, that question became the starting point for a research project exploring how students learn to understand and apply math in meaningful ways.

Earlier this semester, Jeb presented this work at a regional conference hosted at Loyola Marymount University, where they spoke to an audience of faculty and students about math education, numeracy, and the importance of connecting abstract concepts to real-world experiences.

At the center of Jeb’s research is the idea of numeracy, or the ability to read, interpret, and question numbers in everyday life. That includes everything from understanding statistics to recognizing when data might be presented in a misleading way.

“A lot of students don’t see themselves as ‘math people’ early on,” Jeb shared. “But math shows up everywhere. It’s in how we make decisions, how we understand information, and how we navigate the world.”

Their work draws heavily from hands-on teaching approaches. In their own tutoring, Jeb has found that students often grasp concepts more easily when they can physically interact with them, whether that’s using everyday objects to represent numbers or connecting math to topics they already understand.

Part of Jeb’s presentation focused on lesson plans developed through JEP’s STEM Education Programs, which introduce students to data science through questions about community resources and health equity. Using maps and demographic data, students are asked to make decisions, like where to build a hospital, and explain the reasoning behind them.

In working through these kinds of questions, students begin to connect numbers to something tangible. Beyond just reading data, they are interpreting it, questioning it, and using it to make sense of the world around them.

For Jeb, bringing this work into a conference space was a way to expand on ideas they had been exploring across different areas of their JEP experience. Their research drew from tutoring, lesson planning, and conversations with educators along the way.

The presentation sparked thoughtful discussion among attendees, many of whom were teaching at the college level. Questions ranged from how these approaches could be adapted for algebra or calculus to how similar ideas might be incorporated into their own classrooms.

As Jeb looks ahead to graduate study in health equity, they plan to continue exploring how people understand and use numbers in real-world contexts, especially when it comes to making decisions that affect their lives.