Thinking Through Mathematics

Thinking Through Mathematics

Fostering and Sustaining Mathematics Thinking Through Problem Solving

Prepared for courses ECT405, ECT705 offered by the Faculty of Education in Deakin University's Open Campus Program.

Thinking Through Mathematics

This document focuses on how mathematics teaching and learning can be improved by developing more powerful approaches to connect thinking and mathematics. It proposes changing perspectives on what it means to learn and do mathematics and explores how these perspectives can be incorporated into the teaching of secondary school mathematics. Chapter 1 offers a view of mathematics as emerging largely from individual and social activity rather than from textbooks, worksheets, and tradition. The learner is depicted as someone who actively constructs meaning instead of passively receiving it. Chapter 2 considers how a greater emphasis on communication (discussion, debate, recording, and writing) stimulates and uncovers students' learning and thinking and leads to a deeper understanding by both teachers and students. Chapter 3 explores how teachers might encourage greater inquiry and communication in a secondary school class by making minor, but thought-provoking changes in ordinary problems and situations. Finally, chapter 4 gives some practical advice on transforming the mathematics classroom into a place where students are expected not only to absorb and consume mathematics but also to produce and think about it. Contains 17 references and 17 figures. (MKR)