Infusing problem solving into mathematics content course for pre-service secondary school mathematics teachers
This paper presents a re-design of an undergraduate mathematics content course on Introductory Differential Equations for pre-service secondary school mathematics teachers. Based on the science practical paradigm, mathematics practical lessons emphasizing problem-solving processes via the undergraduate content knowledge were embedded within the curriculum delivered through the traditional lecture-tutorial system. The pre-service teachers' performance in six mathematics practical lessons and the mathematics practical test was examined. They were able to respond to the requirements of the mathematics practical to go through the entire process of problem solving and to carry out "Look Back" at their solution: checking the correctness of their solution, offering alternative solutions, and expanding on the given problem. The use of Mathematics Practical has altered the pre-service teachers’ approach in tackling mathematics problems in a positive direction.
Mathematical problem solving for everyone: Infusion and diffusion (MInD)
This research project is an attempt to realise the ideals of mathematical problem solving, which is at the heart of the Singapore mathematics curriculum in the daily practices of mainstream mathematics classrooms. This work builds on the foundation of M-ProSE (OER 32/08 TTL) to diffuse the findings to the mainstream school curriculum. Our work involves three steps: (1) initialisation of problem solving as an essential part of the mathematics curriculum in a school at the foundational year; (2) infusion of problem solving as an embedded regular curricular and pedagogical practice across all year levels in the school, and (3) diffusion of this innovation from this school to the full range of schools in Singapore. In each of the above steps, we take a complex systems approach and include curriculum, instructional practices, assessment and teacher professional development in our overall design research process. Our current project builds upon the initial foundation of MProSE to scale out (infuse) and scale up (diffuse) the innovation to mainstream schools in Singapore, hence the project is named MInD. With the experience and data collected from MProSE research school, the design needs to be re-adjusted in order for problem solving to be diffused throughout the mainstream schools. The importance and relevance of this research project to schools is readily observed by the schools' responses: To the researchers' pleasant surprise, four mainstream schools readily expressed their commitment to participate in this research as the school leaders see the relevance of this project to their school curriculum. Further, the Principal of MProSE research school expressed his interest to get his school involved for the infusion phase(step (2)) of the research. The research team of MInD consists of the original researchers from MProSE and two more new team members. The entire team consists of expertise from different fields: mathematicians, mathematics educator, educational psychologist, curriculum specialist, senior teacher, a school principal (who is also a mathematician), an expert of change management and leadership studies, a senior MOE curriculum specialist.
On some guiding principles of enacting mathematical problem solving for classroom instruction
In addressing the key role that problem solving has been playing in mathematics instruction for K-12, this paper aims to assist mathematics teachers and educators to consider a set of guiding principles for designing problem solving tasks for classroom instructions. The set of guiding principles was synthesized and proposed through the researchers’ systematic review of existing education literature on problem solving.