The purpose of this study was to introduce life-related mathematical writing activities in an effort to provide mathematically retarded children with more efficient mathematics education.
Literature involving theories of mathematical writing activiti...
The purpose of this study was to introduce life-related mathematical writing activities in an effort to provide mathematically retarded children with more efficient mathematics education.
Literature involving theories of mathematical writing activities and earlier studies was reviewed to find out the effect of the activities on mathematicals underachieving children, and the introduction of life-related writing to mathematics guidance was expected to be one of good ways to teach mathematics underachievers in the middle grades who lose interest and face difficulties in problem solving due to poor under- standing of the concepts and principles of mathematics.
The subjects in this study were four mathematically retarded children in H elementary school in Incheon. To identify the state and cause of their academic deficiencies, a mathematical disposition inventory was utilized, which was one of affective evaluation tools, and their mathematics learning attitude and prerequisite learning were checked. After life-related mathematical writing activities were devised, the children received education in 24 sessions by employing the activities about the number and operation category of the fourth-grade A and B stages. And then their mathematical disposition, learning attitude and academic achievement were assessed again to determine the effect of the activities.
The findings of the study were as follows:
First, the life-related mathematical writing activities had a positive impact on changing the negative mathematical disposition and learning attitude of the mathematics underachievers. They got actively involved in class and were able to fix their academic deficiencies.
Second, the life-related mathematical writing activities encouraged the children to find the concepts and principles of number and operation in their life, and they were consequently able to have an easier under- standing of the concepts and principles and to boost their academic achievement.
Third, the life-related mathematical writing activities made it possible for the teacher to grasp the comprehension level of the mathematics underachievers to provide individual guidance. The stereotyped life- related mathematical writing activities were offered just in the early stage, and then they were stimulated to write without any restraints, which served to foster their self-directed learning capabilities.
This study had some limitations, and there are some suggestions about future research:
First, there are a wide variety of causes that trigger the mathematical retardation of underachievers, and it's needed to find out in which case life-related mathematical activities work better.
Second, mathematics underachievers should be helped to understand the subject more easily and have confidence by extracting subject matters linked to the concept and principles of mathematics from daily routine life and rearranging the subject matters in every field of mathematics.
Third, this study examined four fourth-grade mathematically retarded children who especially had difficulties in the category of number and operation, and students with basic academic deficiencies were ruled out. Therefore whether this approach could be applicable to lower or upper graders with mathematical retardation should be studied.