Tay Eng Guan

In a design experiment, the feedback from the teacher-implementer is crucial to the success of the innovation simply because the teacher is finally the one that brings the innovation to life in front of the students. We describe in this paper the feedback made by the teacher-implementer after teaching one cycle of the problem solving module in a mainstream school, and the modifications the researchers and the teacher-implementer have made in our design of the module to fit into the requirement of the school.

Posing good problems is important for learning, teaching and research in mathematics. In this paper, the converse problem posing strategy is applied to Gauss's method that has been used to obtain the summation formula of an Arithmetic Progression. The work here serves as a simple but typical example to demonstrate the use of this strategy. The results obtained may also help the reader see to what extent Gauss's method can be applied, thus enriching one's understanding of this famous method.

In this paper, we propose and describe in some detail a framework for helping low achievers in mathematics that attends to the following areas: Mathematical content resources, Problem solving disposition, Feelings towards the learning of mathematics, and Study habits.

In this paper we elaborate on the ways for assessing problem solving that goes beyond the usual focus on the products of the problem solving process. We designed a ‘practical’ worksheet to guide the students through the problem solving process. The worksheet focuses the solver’s attention on the key stages in problem solving. To assess the students’ problem solving throughout the process, we developed a scoring rubric based on Polya’s model (1954) and Schoenfeld’s framework (1985). Student response to the practical worksheet is discussed.

Given a connected and bridgeless graph G, let D(G) be the family of strong orientations of G. The orientation number of G is defined to be đ(G) := min{d(D) | D ∈ D(G)}, where ,d(D) is the diameter of the digraph D. In this paper, we focus on the orientation number of complete tripartite graphs. We prove a conjecture raised by Rajasekaran and Sampathkumar. Specifically, for q ≥ p ≥ 3, if đ(K(2, p, q)) = 2, then q ≤ (^p_└p/2┘). We also present some sufficient conditions on p and q for đ(K(p, p, q)) = 2.

This article reports the encounters of a mathematician educator with a mathematics journal paper over a few years. The paper trail illustrates an equal fascination with mathematics and its power to educate.