Doris Daniel

Reflection on McLane Visit On February 7, 2001

Our CTL class went on a short field trip to the McLane Distribution Center. The field trip consisted of us sitting in a conference room and listening to the details of the companyÕs values and beliefs, a little of the companyÕs history and the stores that they distribute to, the process of hiring new employees and the qualifications that an employee must possess, and finally the way that McLane is run. We then took a short tour in two groups through the factory, and we were able to see how the assembly line works and meet many employees.

I believe that our field trip had great potential. I think that we could have seen many mathematical applications to the McLane Distribution Center. For example, loading and unloading the trucks is a very precise procedure. The volume of the truck and the weight of the items to be loaded are important factors. Another mathematical application is the formulas that are used to pay the employeesÕ paycheck, specifically the truck drivers. Their wages are determined by a formula that consists of the weight of the loaded truck and the time of the trip. Also, McLane uses an accountant to help them manage their money. We were able to talk a little about this with the top accountant. We talked about the use and advantages of a spreadsheet and models. There were definitely many mathematical applications that could have been presented to us during this field trip.

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Elizabeth Jones

EMAT 3450 Trip to McClane Distribution Center On February 7th, our EMAT 3450 class visited McClane Distribution Center in order to look at how mathematics is utilized in everyday jobs. When we first arrived and sat down for an introduction, it seemed more like the company was trying to get us to come work for them by the way they spoke to us. It also appeared that they weren't aware of why we were there to begin with , and that they weren't prepared to give us any concrete examples of how mathematics is used in their center.

On the other hand, the more I thought about our visit, I realized that there is much more mathematics used than there appeared to be superficially. I noticed that the mathematics job that would be the most beneficial to the company would be an accountant, because of all of the numbers to keep track of. We learned that the inventory in their warehouses needed to be counted often, which required computers as well as accountants. Products were shipped everyday to convenience stores, and this function also required accountants to keep all of the shipments straight. On our tour of the warehouse, we passed a couple of women with calculators and paperwork , sitting at desks.

I believe that it is important to understand that even if mathematics does not appear to be used in a specific job, the closer you look, the more you may realize how much math is actually utilized. This is an important implication for teachers, because teachers need to learn how and where mathematics is used in the real-world, in order to help students to make connections between the content and the context. Mathematics is truly everywhere, so the difficulty is just a matter of helping others to see this also.

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Natalie Smith

Last week our class had the challenge of viewing a seemingly random fieldtrip in the context of mathematics. I must admit that I was a little weary of what kinds of information we could pull from the hiring standards and company goals that could be used in a mathematics classroom, or even how rows of candy and cigarettes could be turned into an algebraic equation. However, I knew that mathematics is all around us, and even a distribution plant can be an enlightening context for textbook mathematics.

Now that a week has passed, I've had some time to think about specific mathematical ideas that we "saw" at McClane. Here is a list of things I've come up with:

1. Considering McClane's employment "pools", we could use their information to think about combinations and probability (n choose r, etc.)
2. We can use their spreadsheet data to explore different kinds of graphs and the relationship of variables.
3. We can use an example of the most volume efficient method of packing crates into the back of a tractor trailer to visualize maximum value problems and geometric ideas.
4. The assembly line and numbering techniques can be used to show even the simplest of number line ideas.

These are just a few of the ideas I came up with that can bring McClane Distribution into the mathematics classroom. This field trip can be used for a variety of course levels, as the mathematics can draw on any number of the ideas and methods we experienced at McClane.

I'm glad we had the opportunity to actually experience contextual learning so that we can get a better idea of how to translate the concepts we are learning into physical goals for ourselves in the future.

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Rebecca Parker

EMAT 3500: Anderson

Reflection Paper of Trip to McLane

I think of trip to McLane was a good idea that was not thought through enough. When the class was in the conference room with the CEO’s, I felt like we moved our classroom to a different location to be lectured to elsewhere. Although I can see how there was a connection made to community resources, I think that the little math that was involved (with the lecture part) revolved around accounting. Realistically, if over 50% of your students will not go into college, the accountant job will not really relate to the majority class. It sounded to me like most people who decide to work straight out of high school got lower jobs and had to work their way up. I would have liked to learn more about the math involved in these jobs.

As far as the tour of McLane, I enjoyed it. I thought that getting to see how things worked behind the scene was very interesting, and it was probably something I would not have thought of doing in my spare time. I liked learning how they packaged things up, moved the trucks into positions, and kept things cold. However, I did not feel that there was anything contextual going on. Math was not related to the process of exploring McLane. I think that there is a different between going on a field trip and going on a contextual journey. Any assignment related to the McLane field trip should have been integrated into the trip while we were there. Otherwise, you are making word-problems about some place we know about a week after the visit. I think that a way to improve this field trip would have been to let us have more time on the tour, looking around, measuring boxes, depths of trucks, temperatures of freezers, and asking mathematical questions to the people that worked there. Then, the following week, we could link the information that we learned to data that we had actually gathered. Clearly, the lecture portion of the field trip took up too much time, while the tour part took up to little. If I get a chance to do this type of field trip, I would. However, I would make many changes to activities do at the location to make it more meaningful for my students.

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