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Herschel's heritage and today's technology integration: a postulated parallel
419-430Views:27During the early 20th century, advocacy of a range of mathematical technologies played a central part in movements for the reform of mathematical education which emphasised ‘practical mathematics' and the ‘mathematical laboratory'. However, as these movements faltered, few of the associated technologies were able to gain and maintain a place in school mathematics. One conspicuous exception was a technology, originally championed by the mathematician Herschel, which successfully permeated the school mathematics curriculum because of its:
• Disciplinary congruence with influential contemporary trends in mathematics.
• External currency in wider mathematical practice beyond the school.
• Adoptive facility of incorporation in classroom practice and curricular activity.
• Educational advantage of perceived benefits outweighing costs and concerns.
An analogous perspective is applied to the situation of new technologies in school mathematics in the early 21st century. At a general level, the cases of calculators and computers are contrasted. At a more specific level, the educational prospects of CAS and DGS are assessed. -
Report of meeting Researches in Didactics of Mathematics and Computer Sciences: January 23-25, 2015 Novi Sad, Serbia
141-162Views:16The meeting Researches in Didactics of Mathematics and Computer Sciences was held in Novi Sad, Serbia from the 23th to the 25th of January, 2015 at the University of Novi Sad. It was organized by the PhD School of Mathematics and Computer Sciences of the University of Debrecen and the Department of Mathematics and Informatics of the University of Novi Sad.
The 70 participants – including 42 lecturers, and 18 PhD students – came from 9 countries, 28 cities and represented 40 intstitutions of higher education. -
Artworks as illustrations in Hungarian high school Mathematics textbooks
103-117Views:68Three different series of Hungarian Mathematics textbooks used in grade 9-12 education for the past 30 years have been analysed in this research. Our aim is to show and evaluate how the visual arts have been connected to mathematical ideas in these textbooks. We have applied the six dimensions of evaluation, which have recently been introduced in (Diego-Mantec on, Blanco, Búa Ares, & González Sequeiros, 2019) to categorise the illustrations of the three different series. We show examples for each dimension from the textbooks, and we find that even if the number of artistic illustrations in these coursebooks have significantly increased, in most cases these sporadic examples are not closely related to the mathematical context, mainly used for ornamental purposes to decorate the core text. Based on this classification we conclude that the number of artistic illustrations with underlying math concepts making students' participation more active could and should be significantly increased.
Subject Classification: 97U20
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A whole new vigor: About Montel’s book "Les mathématiques et la vie" (1947)
51-60Views:65In this paper, we consider a talk presented by the mathematician Paul Montel in Paris in 1944, dedicated to a general presentation of the importance of mathematics in everyday’s life. The text of this talk, and the context of its elaboration, allows various inceptions in the French mathematical life in the middle of 20th century. In particular Montel’s insistence on applications of mathematics strongly contrasts with the main tendencies of the French mathematical stage after the war under the impulse of the Bourbaki group.
Subject Classification: 97A40, 01A60, 60-03
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Guided Discovery in Hungarian Education Using Problem Threads: The Pósa Method in Secondary Mathematics Classrooms
51-67Views:116In Hungary, ‘guided discovery’ refers to instruction in which students learn mathematical concepts through task sequences that foster mathematical thinking. A prominent figure of guided discovery is Lajos Pósa, who developed his method to teach gifted students. Rather than teaching mathematics through thematic blocks, the Pósa Method employs webs of interconnected problem threads in which problems are built on each other, and different threads are presented simultaneously, so that students work on problems from multiple threads at the same time. It was found that this method has been successful as extracurricular training for gifted students since the 1980s; however since 2017, as part of an ongoing research, the method has been applied to mainstream curriculum in two public secondary school classrooms. The present paper examines the design and implementation processes of problem threads in this public secondary school context.
Subject Classification: 97D40
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Levels of students' understanding on infinity
317-337Views:24Here we report some results of a two-year study for grades 5-6 and 7-8 (during the academic years 2001-03). The study included a quantitative survey for approximately 150 Finnish mathematics classes out of which 10 classes were selected to a longitudinal part of the study. Additionally, 40 students from these classes participated also a qualitative study. This paper will focus on students' understanding of infinity and the development of that understanding. The results show that most of the students did not have a proper view of infinity but that the share of able students grew, as the students got older. -
An idea which yields a lot of elementary inequalities
61-72Views:9The aim of the article is to show how studies in higher mathematics can be applied in everyday teaching practice to construct new problems for their pupils. In higher mathematics it is known that the set of real numbers with the addition and multiplication (shortly: (R,+,x)) is an ordered field. Considering a strictly monotonic increasing and continuous function σ with domain ...
By this idea, using different kinds of functions σ we show a lot of different elementary inequalities. -
Constructing the disk method formula for the volume obtained by revolving a curve around an axis with the help of CAS
363-376Views:32Calculus concepts should have been taught in a carefully designed learning environment, because these concepts constitute a very important base for almost all applied sciences. The integral, one of the fundamental concepts of Calculus, has a wide application area. This paper focuses on constructing the disk method formula for the volume obtained by revolving a curve around an axis with the help of a CAS.
In this study, a semi-structured interview was carried out. In this interview, we tried to construct the disk method formula.
The levels of constructing the disk method formula in this study are:
• Introducing the concept: evaluating the volume of an Egyptian pyramid.
• Evaluating the volume of a cone obtained by revolution (using Maple worksheet).
• Designing their own ring and evaluating its price (using Maplet).
In this study, the interview has been presented as a dialog between teacher and students. When we look at feedback from students, we see that such a teaching method effects students in a positive way and causes them to gain conceptual understanding directed towards the concepts of approximation and volume. -
Programming Theorems and Their Applications
213-241Views:117One of the effective methodological approaches in programming that supports the design and development of reliable software is analogy-based programming. Within this framework, the method of problem reduction plays a key role. Reducing a given problem to another one whose solving algorithm is already known can be made more efficient by the application of programming theorems. These represent proven, abstract solutions – in a general form – to some of the most common problems in programming. In this article, we present six fundamental programming theorems as well as pose five sample problems. In solving these problems, all six programming theorems will be applied. In the process of reduction, we will employ a concise specification language. Programming theorems and solutions to the problems will be given using the structogram form. However, we will use pseudocodes as descriptions of algorithms resembling their actual implementation in Python. A functional style solution to one of the problems will also be presented, which is to illustrate that for the implementation in Python, it is sufficient to give the specification of the problem for the design of the solution. The content of the article essentially corresponds to that of the introductory lectures of a course we offered to students enrolled in the Applied Mathematics specialization.
Subject Classification: D40
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Eine geometrische Interpretation der Ausgleichsrechnung
159-173Views:27Using real examples of applied mathematics in upper secondary school one has do deal with inaccurate measures. This will lead to over constrained systems of linear equations. This paper shows an instructive approach which uses methods of descriptive and computer aided geometry to get a deeper insight into the area of calculus of observations. Using a qualified interpretation one can solve problems of calculus of observations with elementary construction techniques of descriptive geometry, independent of the norm one uses. -
The role of representations constructed by students in learning how to solve the transportation problem
129-148Views:107The purpose of the research presented in this paper was to study the role of concrete and table representations created by students in learning how to solve an optimization problem called the transportation problem. This topic was learned in collaborative groups using table representations suggested by teachers in 2021. In 2022, the researchers decided to enrich the students’ learning environment with concrete objects and urged the students to use them to present the problem to be solved. The students did it successfully and, to be able to record it in their notebooks, they constructed a table representation by themselves without any help from their teacher. After that, they managed to solve the problem by manipulating the objects. At the same time, each step in the solution was presented with changes in the table. The students were assessed before (pre-test) and after collaborative learning (test) in both academic years. The pre-test results were similar, but the test results were better in 2022. Therefore, it can be concluded that using concrete and table representations constructed by students in learning how to solve transportation problems makes collaborative learning more constructivist and more effective than when they use only table representations suggested by their teachers.
Subject Classification: 97M10, 97M40
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Concept systematization with concept maps in data modelling
149-166Views:41An important goal of concept learning is that students can allocate concepts in the hierarchical system of concepts. In the data modelling course, first, we supported concept systematization with worksheets in which the students had to fill in the blank hierarchical figures of classification of the concepts or blank Venn diagrams describing the relationships between concepts. The hierarchical systems, however, are somewhat restricted to the description of connections. The filling in Venn diagrams did not deliver the expected result, so our attention turned to concept maps. In this paper we introduce the concept maps we drew. Then we evaluate the results of concept mapping survey conducted among students. The survey was done in three courses. We compare the results of our survey with the result of an earlier concept systematising survey. -
Longest runs in coin tossing. Teaching recursive formulae, asymptotic theorems and computer simulations
261-274Views:39The coin tossing experiment is studied, focusing on higher education. The length of the longest head run can be studied by asymptotic theorems ([3]), by recursive formulae ([10]) or by computer simulations . In this work we make a comparative analysis of recursive formulas, asymptotic results and Monte Carlo simulation for education. We compare the distribution of the longest head run and that of the longest run (i.e. the longest pure heads or pure tails) studying fair coin events. We present a method that helps to understand the concepts and techniques mentioned in the title, which can be a useful didactic tool for colleagues teaching in higher education. -
Teaching XML
317-335Views:32The author has been teaching XML at the Faculty of Informatics, University of Debrecen since the end of the nineties. This paper gives an overview of XML technology from an educators viewpoint that is based on the experience that the author has gained teaching XML over the years. A detailed description of the XML course is provided. Methodological issues are also discussed.