What is Mathematics???
Maths is a universal subject and is everywhere. Just as I said in the other post,it is involved in everything , from paying bills to shapes of buildings,the counting at the traffic lights and the number of minutes in an hour. It is a study of patterns and order. No wonder , like languages, arithmetic is a necessity. It is a critical way of thinking. It is more than arithmetic and has diverse applications.
When we think mathematically, we are actually indulged in methodical inquiry based activities. We have a problematic situation and we want to find the answer to it. We have to be creative about how to get it going. It is about using the mathematical techniques to address the problem. Thinking mathematically is about having a mathematical, logical bent of mind that takes reasoning as the base for problem solving. Maths is both an art and science. It is based on principles that can be mastered and honed through practice.
One thing the majority of people find is that other than basic arithmetic, we rarely ever use the formulae in our lives. So we are forced to think the rationale of even studying them. Instead of just handing down the mathematical rules to the children, what if we explain the basis ? I know that instead of telling them (a+b)2 = a2 + 2ab+b2, if I tell them how to derive a2 + 2ab+b2, and what does this mean, it makes a lot more sense and they see it meaningful.Well ... we as teachers can make a difference I feel in making our students fall in love with it.
'Mathematics is dreadful,complex,scary,a heap of numbers, formulae and arithmetic calculations'.
Well... that is what majority of people feel about the subject. I think the reason is obvious. They have not been exposed to the wonders of maths properly or in the right way. We saw in our class how majority of the people placed themselves in the middle on the 10 point scale for measuring 'how much of a math person you are?'. And we heard our prof say that it was the case with almost every class she has had. There was something I stumbled upon when trying to find more about the various viewpoints on mathematics.It is not anything about the subject that is wrong. But about how we view it and how the teaching goes in our schools.
The traditional view makes us see maths as a collection of rules, arithmetic computations,algebraic equations, geometric proofs, a series of arbitrary rules, as answer oriented computation dominated subject. However, maths is actually 'making sense of things'. It is problem solving with logical reasoning. It begins with a problem based situation and allows an individual to use varied techniques to solve it.And what we call complex mathematical formulae, I see them as shortened form of problem solving techniques that have been devised carefully after experimenting on myriad sets of data and that hold truth in every case and give out consistent results.
Maths is a universal subject and is everywhere. Just as I said in the other post,it is involved in everything , from paying bills to shapes of buildings,the counting at the traffic lights and the number of minutes in an hour. It is a study of patterns and order. No wonder , like languages, arithmetic is a necessity. It is a critical way of thinking. It is more than arithmetic and has diverse applications.
When we think mathematically, we are actually indulged in methodical inquiry based activities. We have a problematic situation and we want to find the answer to it. We have to be creative about how to get it going. It is about using the mathematical techniques to address the problem. Thinking mathematically is about having a mathematical, logical bent of mind that takes reasoning as the base for problem solving. Maths is both an art and science. It is based on principles that can be mastered and honed through practice.
One thing the majority of people find is that other than basic arithmetic, we rarely ever use the formulae in our lives. So we are forced to think the rationale of even studying them. Instead of just handing down the mathematical rules to the children, what if we explain the basis ? I know that instead of telling them (a+b)2 = a2 + 2ab+b2, if I tell them how to derive a2 + 2ab+b2, and what does this mean, it makes a lot more sense and they see it meaningful.Well ... we as teachers can make a difference I feel in making our students fall in love with it.
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