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Quantitative Literacy Guidelines

Guidelines for the General Education Quantitative Literacy Requirement

Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs)

After completing the Quantitative Literacy requirement, students will have demonstrated competency using mathematical, computational, or statistical methods to:

  • Solve real-world problems
  • Draw inferences based on a set of data or quantitative information
  • Justify conclusions derived from quantitative information

Rationale

Rather than simply exposing students to numbers, formulas, or data, courses that fulfill UNO’s General Education Quantitative Literacy requirement place significant emphasis on developing a student’s ability to reason quantitatively.  Quantitative literacy has been described as a “habit of mind” where individuals are able to identify, critique, reflect upon, and apply quantitative information in their public, personal, and professional lives (National Numeracy Network).  Upon completing this requirement, students should be able to solve quantitative problems in a wide variety of contexts and life situations, and communicate ideas supported by quantitative evidence in multiple formats including words, equations, tables, graphs, and other expressions of quantitative data.     

Each course:

  • Must meet college-level rigor requirements (https:www.unomaha.edu/academic-affairs/_files/documents/policies/rigor-statement.pdf)
  • Must be approved by the University General Education Committee;
  • Must involve more than just having students "use math"; courses must include explicit instruction, guidance, assignments and feedback concerning the disciplinary specific practices and strategies for reasoning quantitatively, including but not limited to:
    • Use a variety of mathematical, computation, or statistical problem-solving strategies 
    • Explain how data and quantitative information are relevant to understanding real-world problems;
    • Collect, organize, analyze data, and interpret various representations of data, including graphs and tables
    • Communicate findings using appropriate mathematical, computation, or statistical language with supporting data, graphs, tables, etc.
    • Recognize the limits of quantitative methods to solve problems and answer questions;
  • Must involve explicit instruction in mathematical, computational, or statistical methods that address the three SLO's. Approximately 85-100% of the final course grade should derive from the assessment of students' ability to reason quantitatively.

Resources

Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, “Brief History of the Quantitative Literacy Movement