Search
Search Results
-
Group Work at High School According to the Method of Tamás Varga
167-176Views:178The aim of our research is to develop students’ logical thinking. For this reason, Hungarian mathematics teachers need to be encouraged to try new methods which induce greater student involvement. Research all over the world prove that self-instruction or self-verbalizing has high effect on the learning process. This was one of the key elements of Tamás Varga’s experiment in high school. In our classroom experiments we are using a special cooperative method from Kagan among 14-18 years old students, called Sage and Scribe structure. We are looking for the answers to the following question: Does this method make mathematics lessons more enjoyable and more comfortable for students? Furthermore, we assume this structure could open the gate toward other collaborative and cooperative teaching technics.
Subject Classification: 97D40
-
Report of meeting Researches in Didactics of Mathematics and Computer Sciences: January 20 - January 22, 2012, Levoča, Slovakia
205-230Views:115The meeting Researches in Didactics of Mathematics and Computer Sciences was held in Levoca, Slovakia from the 20th to the 22th of January, 2012. The 66 participants – including 54 lecturers and 25 PhD students – came from 6 countries, 20 cities and represented 33 institutions of higher and secondary education. The abstract of the talks and the posters and also the list of participants are presented in this report. -
Report of meeting Researches in Didactics of Mathematics and Computer Sciences: January 28 – January 30, 2011, Satu Mare, Romania
159-179Views:106The meeting Researches in Didactics of Mathematics and Computer Science was held in Satu-Mare, Romania from the 28th to the 30th of January, 2011. The 46 Hungarian participants – including 34 lecturers and 12 PhD students – came from 3 countries, 14 cities and represented 20 institutions of higher education. The abstract of the talks and the posters and also the list of participants are presented in this report. -
Teaching of old historical mathematics problems with ICT tools
13-24Views:149The aim of this study is to examine how teachers can use ICT (information and communications technology) tools and the method of blended learning to teach mathematical problem solving. The new Hungarian mathematics curriculum (NAT) emphasizes the role of history of science, therefore we chose a topic from the history of mathematics, from the geometry of triangles: Viviani's Theorem and its problem field. We carried out our teaching experiments at a secondary school with 14-year-old students. Students investigated open geometrical problems with the help of a dynamic geometric software (GeoGebra). Their research work was similar to the historical way. -
Solving word problems - a crucial step in lower secondary school education
47-68Views:239Algebra is considered one of the most important parts of Mathematics teaching and learning, because it lays the foundations of abstract thinking as well as reasoning abilities among the lower secondary school pupils who have just transited from the world of numbers and computations to the area of equalities, signs, symbols and letters. The present article focuses on the fact that how the transition from arithmetic to algebra can be made more smooth. We have concentrated our experiments towards the approach of algebraic reasoning and its utilities in filling the gap between arithmetic and beginning algebra in lower secondary school education.We also underline the importance of another approach in overcoming the challenges in the transition from arithmetic to algebra, to enhance and make algebraic learning more effective, with special considerations to word problem-solving processes. In our opinion, we have to go through three phases in the introducing of algebra in Grade 7 Mathematics education: Regula Falsi method (based only on numerical calculations); functional approach to algebra (which combines the numerical computation with letter-symbolic manipulation); and writing equations to word problems. The conclusions of the present article would be helpful to Mathematics teachers for applying themselves to develop the pupils’ interest in word problem-solving processes during algebra teaching classroom activities.
Subject Classification: 97B10, 97C30, 97C50, 97D10, 97D40
-
Report of meeting Researches in Didactics of Mathematics and Computer Sciences: January 21 – January 23, 2010, Debrecen, Hungary
177-195Views:87The meeting Researches in Didactics of Mathematics and Computer Sciences was held in Debrecen, Hungary from January 21 to January 23, 2010. The 42 Hungarian participants – including 16 PhD students – came from 5 countries, 14 cities and represented 25 institutions of higher education. The abstracts of the talks and the posters and also the list of participants are presented in this report. -
Report of meeting Researches in Didactics of Mathematics and Computer Sciences: January 30 - February 1, 2009, Debrecen, Hungary
165-186Views:99The meeting Researches in Didactics of Mathematics and Computer Sciences was held in Debrecen, Hungary from January 30 to February 1, 2009. The 49 Hungarian participants – including 15 PhD students – came from 18 cities and represented 29 institutions of higher education. The abstracts of the talks and the posters and also the list of participants are presented in this report. -
Interdisciplinary Secondary-School Workshop: Physics and Statistics
179-194Views:135The paper describes a teaching unit of four hours with talented students aged 15-18. The workshop was designed as a problem-based sequence of tasks and was intended to deal with judging dice whether they are regular or loaded. We first introduced the students to the physics of free rotations of rigid bodies to develop the physics background of rolling dice. The highlight of this part was to recognise that cubes made from homogeneous material are the optimal form for six-sided objects leading to equal probabilities of the single faces. Experiments with all five regular bodies would lead to similar results; nevertheless, in our experiments we focused on regular cubes. This reinsures that the participants have their own experience with the context. Then, we studied rolling dice from the probabilistic point of view and – step-by-step – by extending tasks and simulations, we introduced the idea of the chi-squared test interactively with the students. The physics and the statistics part of the paper are largely independent and can be also be read separately. The success of the statistics part is best described by the fact that the students recognised that in some cases of loaded dice, it is easier to detect that property and in other cases one would need many data to make a decision with small error probabilities. A physical examination of the dice under inspection can lead to a quick and correct decision. Yet, such a physical check may fail for some reason. However, a statistical test will always lead to reasonable decision, but may require a large database. Furthermore, especially for smaller datasets, balancing the risk of different types of errors remains a key issue, which is a characteristic feature of statistical testing.
Subject Classification: F90, K90, M50, R30
-
Exploring the basic concepts of Calculus through a case study on motion in gravitational space
111-132Views:184In universities, the Calculus course presents significant challenges year after year. In this article, we will demonstrate how to use methods of Realistic Mathematics Education (RME) to introduce the concepts of limits, differentiation, and integration based on high school kinematics and dynamics knowledge. All mathematical concepts are coherently built upon experiences, experiments, and fundamental dynamics knowledge related to motion in a gravitational field. With the help of worksheets created using GeoGebra or Microsoft Excel, students can conduct digital experiments and later independently visualize and relate abstract concepts to practical applications, thereby facilitating their understanding.
Subject Classification: 97D40, 97I40, 97M50
-
Sage and scribe – asymmetrical pair work that can easily fit into any mathematics lesson, yet still have cooperative benefits
133-164Views:498This article uses a case study experiment to learn the characteristics of a pair work, called the sage and scribe method (Kagan, 2008). We also wished to explore the positive and negative effects of the systematic application of this single cooperative element without any other structural changes during the lessons. In the case study experiment, we asked two teachers, accustomed to traditional frontal teaching methods, to substitute individual work tasks in their standard lesson plans with the sage and scribe method. Our experiments indicate that this method wastes insignificant time, requires little extra effort on the part of the teacher, yet has many of the positive effects of cooperative methods: in our experiments, students received immediate feedback, corrected each other’s mistakes, learned from each other in meaningful discussions and engaged in collaborative reasoning to address emerging problems.
Subject Classification: 97D40
