Reflections+on+Oct+5

=Reflections On Oct 5=

Please add your name and your two paragraphs Please also comment on the main page and add comments to the three sub-pages

=Jim Noble - Reflections = It was great to have the time and space and the company of those present to reflect on the significance of technology on the nature of the Mathematics curriculum. I am left feeling that the changes required to mathematics curricula are less radical than at first suggested. There are numerous ways to engage students in the mathematics in the current curricula and many teachers are doing so inventively and creatively, already making excellent use of technology. Amongst the advantages is the way technology removes the need for lengthy repeated 'calculations' and allows students to investigate more sophisticated mathematics and develop higher order thinking skills.

 The following are some key points that stand out for me


 *  The relevance of pure mathematics as a breeding ground for critical thinking skills and a way of knowing and understanding. I believe firmly that this remains an exciting and deeply important aspect of mathematics education that we should aim to give all students experience of at some level. This is, however, by no means in conflict with the use of technology, but does mean that we mustn't slip in to a mind set that believes all mathematical problems must have a direct contextual relevance to an every day situation or job to be of value.
 *  Content and time. There is a suggestion that something has to go in order to make room for a new computer based curriculum, and whilst on a pragmatic level this is obviously true, I would like to put forward the suggestion that an aim of mathematics teaching should be to equip students with thinking skills required to tackle new areas of mathematics independently. If the suggestion is that a teacher will say I can't explore 'topic x' until I have taught it and I don't have time to do both, then I would argue that the former should take care of the latter and in that sense it is possible to achieve both without 'cutting topic x' from the curriculum. (Imagine this principle applied to different topics, like Pythagoras theorem for example). The big implications of this are in the development of assessment tools that match this kind of approach and don't depend on hand calculations.
 *  Mileposts. For the want of a better term this represents the crux of the matter for me. There is a need for a clear statement about what capabilities we want students to have. From here, an equally explicit statement can be made about what classroom tasks should be like in order to pursue these goals and then the difficult task of designing an assessment tool that best fits these two can begin.

 As a result of the above, I am driven to want to articulate carefully the advantages that technology brings to the classroom and how it facilitates the promotion of mathematical thinking skills. Along with this I would like to provide a list of example tasks that exemplify these points. I would also like to experiment more in my own classroom with computer based assessments. I think a good aim for the group would be to work on the following statements each of which could be a page on this wikispace,


 *  What capabilities do we want students to have? What are the goals of Mathematics education? (these can be informed by some of the research mentioned during the session about maths in the workplace and what employers want)
 *  What are the advantages of technology in the teaching mathematics?
 *  Some exemplar tasks (like those we started to work on)

Once these have been established it might be easier to be more specific about which aspects of the curriculum need to be left out to make room for newer ideas and then approach the difficult task of imagining an appropriate assessment tool.

=**Chris Sangwin **=

See file ** Chris Sangwin Truth ** on this wikiSpace