[Maths-Education] The resource for the course
Graham Griffiths
GGriffiths@candi.ac.uk
Tue, 18 Sep 2001 14:27:25 +0100
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
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> Email: anne.watson@edstud.ox.ac.uk
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