[Maths-Education] The resource for the course

[Graham Griffiths]

A very sharp distinction is being made here - are these intended to be
mutually exclusive categories?



> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Anne Watson [SMTP:anne.watson@educational-studies.oxford.ac.uk]
> Sent:	Tuesday, September 18, 2001 12:31 AM
> To:	maths-education@nottingham.ac.uk
> Subject:	[Maths-Education] The resource for the course
> 
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> It is interesting to use some KS3 questions as starters for 
> whole-class discussion, posed as problems and approached as 
> problem-solving tasks rather than as practice for tests.
> 
> It seems to me there are only two ways to see the teaching of 
> mathematics in schools.
> 
> The first is that tests, levels, league-tables etc. etc. are the real 
> aim of education (how else can you get the market to operate?) and 
> hence the job is to train students to jump exactly through the right 
> hoops ... never mind their deeper understanding, never mind their 
> intellectual growth, never mind their souls.  If we accept that view, 
> then teaching exactly to the test and testing exactly what is taught 
> seems OK, why not make everything so familiar that autopilot takes 
> over. Worrying about understanding and going beyond the syllabus is a 
> waste of time.  But is that mathematics?
> 
> The second is that learning mathematics, becoming a mathematician, 
> developing understandings about mathematics are not really testable 
> in themselves but make passing tests a lot easier and continuing to 
> study maths a lot more appealing and fulfilling (and the possibility 
> of teaching it a lot more attractive).   In my experience as a 
> teacher, which was not unlike what Jo Boaler describes in her book, 
> doing the exam was not a major trauma and it was quite surprising 
> what students could do in exams which they had not been specifically 
> taught.   This was because they had an understanding of what 
> mathematics was, and what sort of questions to ask themselves when 
> tackling unfamiliar problems. You cannot get this kind of awareness 
> by being trained to solve familiar problems; you get there by working 
> imaginatively with the unfamiliar.  Incidentally, you also get more 
> interesting students.
> 
> Anne Watson
> 
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> Dr. Anne Watson
> Tutor for Higher Degrees,
> University Lecturer in Educational Studies (Mathematics)
> University of Oxford
> Department of Educational Studies
> 15 Norham Gardens
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> United Kingdom
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> Tel:  44 01865 274052
> Fax:  44 01865 274027
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> Email:  anne.watson@edstud.ox.ac.uk
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