Mathematics education

“Without mathematics, there’s nothing you can do. Everything around you is mathematics. Everything around you is numbers.” Shakuntala Devi, popularly known as the ‘mental calculator’ was an Indian writer who understood the importance of mathematics in one’s life. Following her belief, I am confident in saying mathematics is one of the most essential subjects one learns during their academic career. However, I firmly believe that mathematics education needs to be effective. In order to be effective, instructors need to teach students information that is directly related to their lives in a manner that does not cause unnecessary stress on students and rather makes learning mathematics enjoyable for students. Effective mathematics education also…

am pursuing a degree in mathematics education (B.S.Ed.) with licensure to be able to teach mathematics to 7-12 grade students. For this activity, I selected my former high school Accelerated Algebra II teacher Della Highman at Franklin Heights High School. She has been teaching algebra for a number of years and even has an ESL math class that meets for two periods per day. I decided to interview her because of the diverse setting of my high school and the fact she has been teaching algebra for…

While there has been an increase in the use of virtual manipulatives. Their concrete counterpart’s haven been at the head of mathematics education for decades. The use of concrete manipulatives has long been applauded as a quality instructional tool. “Students’ mental images and abstract ideas are based on their experiences. Hence, students who see and manipulate a variety of objects have clearer mental images and can represent abstract ideas more completely than those whose experiences are…

Background This research focuses on the pedagogy of teaching Mathematics and learners’ motivation, and how different pedagogies of teaching can affect motivation and the attitude of learners towards mathematics. As a mathematician, it is very important for me that my learners understand Mathematics and its relevance to daily life. Schleicher (2013:1) defines the importance of mathematics: “Good numeracy is the best protection against unemployment, low wages and poor health”. Learners often…

It discusses several sensitive subjects such as the discovery of America and the way that Latinos were treated though out history. This chapter also goes into detail about the National Association for Multicultural Education (NAME) and the importance it has in relation to social studies. This chapter discussed the importance of teaching social studies and incorporating appropriate literature, opening student minds to the culture and heritage of Latinos and to help students have a better…

beliefs in myself concerning mathematics is one of duality: I know that I am more than capable of solving complex questions, yet I am also conscious of my lacking motivation behind the subject itself which stems from…

On the other hand, some courses optimization seems to be the strongest topic in applied mathematics, with additional interest in differential equations. Lecturers are not much motivated to improve the situation rather they maintain their traditional lecture approach. Problem-solving applications and research activities generally are only beginning to take hold, however, because university mathematics has traditionally focused on theoretical topics on the assumption that the only career for math…

Since the beginning of our time together as a class, we have held many late night discussions on what geometry instruction may look like at the elementary level. I have learned about the Geometric Habits of Mind that should be present in our classrooms as we engage our students in geometric thinking. I have also had demonstrated for me what it looks like for a teacher to help his/her students move forward to higher Van Hiele levels of thought. These two systems of thinking, along with the…

“Mathematics” is an open concept with many possible meanings. In Philosophical Investigations, Ludwig Wittgenstein(1992) talks about the variety of language games, and “mathematics” may operate in a huge number of such games. While mathematics as a research field includes a vast domain of unsolved issues and conceptions in development. Well-intended definitions, as suggested by classic positions within the philosophy of mathematics – where logicism describes mathematics as a further development…

mathematical knowledge, the skills and strategies that students already know are used to investigate and solve real world situations. Mathematics modeling in PreK-8th grade starts out with a real world problem. The teacher no longer plays the role of teacher, but more so a facilitator, that guides the students into what tools and strategies they already know, that would help them solve the problem given. These problems or situations or tasks, are not just random textbook questions. “Teachers…