Meaning in Mathematics Education

ISBN-13: 9781441936820 / Angielski / Miękka / 2010 / 260 str.

Jeremy Kilpatrick; Celia Hoyles; OLE Skovsmose

Opis

This book is a product of the BACOMET group, a group of educators-mainly educators of prospective teachers of mathematics-who first came together in 1980 to engage in study, discussion, and mutual reflection on issues in mathematics education. BACOMET is an acronym for BAsic Components of Mathematics Education for Teachers. The group was formed after a series of meetings in 1978-1979 between Geoffrey Howson, Michael Otte, and the late Bent Christiansen. In the ensuing years, BACOMET initiated several projects that resulted in published works. The present book is the main product of the BACOMET project entitled Meaning and Communication in Mathematics Education. This theme was chosen because of the growing recognition internationally that teachers of mathematics must deal with questions of meaning, sense making, and communication if their students are to be proficient learners and users of mathematics. The participants in this project were the following: Nicolas Balacheff (Grenoble, France) Maria Bartolini Bussi (Modena, Italy) Rolf Biehler (Bielefeld, Germany) Robert Davis (New Brunswick, NJ, USA) Willibald Dorfler (Klagenfurt, Austria) Tommy Dreyfus (Holon, Israel) Joel Hillel (Montreal, Canada) Geoffrey Howson (Southampton, England) Celia Hoyles-Director (London, England) Jeremy Kilpatrick-Director (Athens, GA, USA) Christine Keitel (Berlin, Germany) Colette Laborde (Grenoble, France) Michael Otte (Bielefeld, Germany) Kenneth Ruthven (Cambridge, England) Anna Sierpinska (Montreal, Canada) Ole Skovsmose-Director (Aalborg, Denmark) Conversations about directions the project might take began in May 1993 at a NATO Advanced Research Workshop of the previous BACOMET project in VIII PREFACE

Spis treści

Meanings of Meaning of Mathematics.- “Meaning” and School Mathematics.- The Meaning of Conics: Historical and Didactical Dimensions.- Reconstruction of Meaning as a Didactical Task: The Concept of Function as an Example.- Meaning in Mathematics Education.- Collective Meaning and Common Sense.- Mathematics Education and Common Sense.- Communication and Construction of Meaning.- Making Mathematics and Sharing Mathematics: Two Paths to Co-Constructing Meaning?.- The Hidden Role of Diagrams in Students’ Construction of Meaning in Geometry.- What’s a Best Fit? Construction of Meaning in a Linear Algebra Session.- Discoursing Mathematics Away.- Meaning and Mathematics.

Blurb

What does it mean to know mathematics? How does meaning in mathematics education connect to common sense or to the meaning of mathematics itself? How are meanings constructed and communicated and what are the dilemmas related to these processes? There are many answers to these questions, some of which might appear to be contradictory. Thus understanding the complexity of meaning in mathematics education is a matter of huge importance. There are twin directions in which discussions have developed—theoretical and practical—and this book seeks to move the debate forward along both dimensions while seeking to relate them where appropriate. A discussion of meaning can start from a theoretical examination of mathematics and how mathematicians over time have made sense of their work. However, from a more practical perspective, anybody involved in teaching mathematics is faced with the need to orchestrate the myriad of meanings derived from multiple sources that students develop of mathematical knowledge.

This book presents a wide variety of theoretical reflections and research results about meaning in mathematics and mathematics education based on long-term and collective reflection by the group of authors as a whole. It is the outcome of the work of the BACOMET (BAsic COmponents of Mathematics Education for Teachers) group who spent several years deliberating on this topic. The ten chapters in this book, both separately and together, provide a substantial contribution to clarifying the complex issue of meaning in mathematics education.

This book is of interest to researchers in mathematics education, graduate students of mathematics education, under graduate students in mathematics, secondary mathematics teachers and primary teachers with an interest in mathematics.