Modelling with poetry in an introductory college algebra course and beyond

The main focus of this article is the pedagogical use of poetry in a college course, Introductory College Algebra and Mathematical Modelling, which was designed to prepare students with weak mathematics background for science courses. We use poetry projects to ease the difficulties students have with the transition between word-problems representing natural phenomena, and the corresponding mathematical models–the equations representing the phenomena. We also use poetry projects to stimulate classroom participation, develop mathematical intuition, enhance number sense and introduce new concepts in an engaging setting. We present two examples of group-projects that we employed in our course, as well as a number of other poems which may be used to construct additional group or individual projects in courses of similar mathematical level. We conclude by providing a brief survey of the pedagogical uses of poetry in the K-14 mathematics classroom, and examples of poetry that may be used to enhance learning experience in calculus classes.

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