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• Mathematics teachers' reasons to use (or not) intentional errors

  263-282

  Riikka Palkki

  Peter Hästö

  Views:

  256

  Mathematics teachers can make use of both spontaneously arising and intentionally planted errors. Open questions about both types of errors were answered by 23 Finnish middle-school teachers. Their reasons to use or not to use errors were analyzed qualitatively. Seven categories were found: Activation and discussion, Analyzing skills, Correcting misconceptions, Learning to live with errors, (Mis)remembering errors, (Mis)understanding error and Time. Compared to earlier results, the teachers placed substantially less emphasis on affective issues, whereas the answers yielded new distinctions in cognitive dimensions. In particular, teachers' inclination to see errors as distractions could be divided into two aspects: students misunderstanding an error in the first place or student forgetting that an error was erroneous. Furthermore, the content analysis revealed generally positive beliefs towards using errors but some reservations about using intentional errors. Teachers viewed intentional errors mainly positively as possibilities for discussion, analysis and learning to live with mistakes.

• Probabilistic thinking, characteristic features

  13-36

  Judit Szitányi

  Views:

  128

  This paper is the first step in a series of a general research project on possible development in probability approach. Our goal is to check with quantitative methods how correct our presumptions formulated during our teaching experience were. In order to get an answer to this question, we conducted a survey among third-year students at our college about their general and scientific concepts as well as about the way they typically think.

• Zbigniew Michalewicz - Matthew Michalewicz: Puzzle Based Learning: An introduction to critical thinking, mathematics, and problem solving. Hybrid Publishers Melbourne 2008 (Book review)

  415-420

  András Ambrus

  Views:

  265

  Based on their experiences with engineering, mathematics, computer science, business students concerning the puzzle based learning in different countries the authors summarize their main problem solving teaching ideas. With help of interesting, motivating, nice problems they analyze the main mathematical principles and problem types. The review gives an overview about the main ideas, results of an interesting book.

• Metadata formats and the new markup language from library field

  85-102

  Marianna Salgáné Medveczki

  Views:

  130

  Using new communication technologies libraries must face continuously new questions, possibilities and expectations. This study discusses some library-related aspects of our electronic era and how computer-related data formats affect bibliographic dataprocessing to give a survey of the most important results.
  Altough library systems have been supporting the creation and maintenance of MARC records for decades, the need to create other forms of metadata is relatively new. In higher education it is important that students get acquainted with these new aspects of bibliographic description and bibliographic dataprocessing.
  In our department I launched the BDML development project in order to standardize bibliographic description (based on Hungarian standard 3424/1) with the help of XML. The development aims at the creation of a set of standards that provides information about the structure of bibliographic description in XML form. In the second part of the paper I give a brief presentation and summary of BDML.

• The time spent on board games pays off: links between board game playing and competency motivation

  119-131

  András Ferenc Dukán

  Katalin Fried

  Csaba Szabó

  Views:

  350

  The impact playing has on the development of thinking is an important topic of psychology of learning, brain research and mathematics didactics.
  Our research is also connected to the aforementioned topic. We investigated the effects of playing board games on competence motivation and the development of mathematical competencies.
  In this paper, we present the results of an experiment carried out in a secondary school class.
  The experimental group spent one of three weekly mathematics lessons playing board games.
  Apart from the several advantages of playing games in general, we can conclude that, based on the results of the national competence measurement, the mathematical competence of the students developed properly.
  The readiness and the progress of the pupils were compared on the basis of input and output tests and an initial knowledge measurement and, at the same time, we compared their level of mathematical competence with the results of the national competence
  measurement.

  Subject Classification: 97C70, 97D40

• Teaching probability using graph representations

  103-122

  Gabriella Zsombori

  Szilárd András

  Views:

  187

  The main objective of this paper is to present an elementary approach to classical probability theory, based on a Van Hiele type framework, using graph representation and counting techniques, highly suitable for teaching in lower and upper secondary schools. The main advantage of this approach is that it is not based on set theoretical, or combinatorial knowledge, hence it is more suitable for beginners and facilitates the transitions from level 0 to level 3. We also mention a few teaching experiences on different levels (lower secondary school, upper secondary school, teacher training, professional development, university students) based on this approach.

• Report on the "English Language Section of Varga Tamás Days 2009"

  169-175

  Krisztina Barczi

  Views:

  147

  The 9th English Language Section as a part of the Varga Tamás Days was organised by the Department of Mathematics Education at the Teacher Training Institute of the Eötvös Loránd University. We report on the talks and the following discussions in this section.

• From iteration to one - dimensional discrete dynamical systems using CAS

  271-296

  Csaba Sárvári

  Mihály Klincsik

  Views:

  100

  In our paper we present the basic didactical framework and approaches of a course on one-dimensional discrete dynamical systems made with the help of Computer Algebra Systems (CAS) for students familiar with the fundamentals of calculus. First we review some didactical principles of teaching mathematics in general and write about the advantages of the modularization for CAS in referring to the constructivistic view of learning. Then we deal with our own development, a CAS-based collection of programs for teaching Newton's method for the calculation of roots of a real function. Included is the discussion of domains of attraction and chaotic behaviour of the iterations. We summarize our teaching experiences using CAS.