Higher Goals in Mathematics Education
Author: Kolar-Begovic, Zdenka, Ed.
Date: 2015-00-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Foreign Countries,Mathematics Education,Problem Solving,Teaching Methods,Mathematics,Computer Uses in Education,Technology Integration,Mathematics Instruction,Geometry,Attitudes,Academically Gifted,Word Problems (Mathematics),Visual Aids,Student Behavior,Electronic Learning,Student Motivation,Preservice Teachers,Student Attitudes,Scores,Grades (Scholastic),Elementary Education,Early Childhood Education,Algebra,Statistics,Creativity,Mathematics Teachers,Secondary Education

This monograph offers an overview of the current research work carried out in Croatia and the surrounding countries, and specifically an interesting insight in teaching and learning issues in these countries. The authors discuss the need of the general population for becoming good problem-solvers in society of today, which is characterised by rapid technological changes and economic development. They argue that modern teaching methods are therefore needed. From the contributions in this monograph, it appears that awareness of future teachers' beliefs and knowledge is present in the tertiary education. The studies investigate various aspects of pre-service and in-service teachers' characteristics, like beliefs, knowledge, digital competencies or using ICT in teaching. But the contributions also portray another picture: mathematics education is becoming accepted as a field of scientific research in this region. Although mathematics education research is a young scientific field, it has been recognised that changes in the curriculum and teaching practice should draw upon findings from well-established mathematics education studies. Therefore, in order to enhance mathematics teaching and learning in Croatia and the surrounding countries, there should exist continuous collaboration between communities of mathematics researchers and teacher practitioners, since one of many problems is how to make research results more usable in the classroom. This book contains the results of the research on teaching mathematics and examples of good practice provided by the scholars from the neighbouring countries Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Hungary, Romania, Slovenia and Sweden. The following chapters are presented in this monograph: (1) Understanding of mathematically gifted students' approaches to problem solving (Tatjana Hodnik Cadež, Vida Manfreda Kolar), (2) Contemporary methods of teaching mathematics--the discovering algorithm method. Algorithm for fraction division (Maja Cindric, Irena Mišurac), (3) Word problems in mathematics teaching (Edith Debrenti), (4) Graphical representations in teaching GCF and LCM (Karmelita Pjanic, Edin Lidan), (5) Mathematics + Computer Science = True (Anders Hast), (6) Discovering patterns of student behaviour in e-learning environment (Marijana Zekic-Sušac, Ivana Ðurdevic Babic), (7) Classification trees in detecting students' motivation for maths from their ICT and Facebook use (Ivana Ðurdevic Babic, Anita Marjanovic), (8) Using Moodle in teaching mathematics in Croatian education system (Josipa Matotek), (9) Future teachers' perception on the application of ICT in the process of assessment and feedback (Karolina Dobi Barišic), (10) Pass rates in mathematical courses: relationship with the state matura exams scores and high school grades (Dušan Mundar, Zlatko Erjavec), (11) Approaches to teaching mathematics in lower primary education (Sead Rešic, Ivana Kovacevic), (12) Issues in contemporary teaching of mathematics and teacher competencies (Zoran Horvat), (13) Teaching Mathematics in early education: current issues in classrooms (Ksenija Romstein, Stanislava Irovic, Mira Vego), (14) Preservice mathematics teachers' problem solving processes when working on two nonroutine geometry problems (Doris Dumicic Danilovic, Sanja Rukavina), (15) Tendencies in identifying geometric shapes observed in photos of real objects--case of students of primary education (Karmelita Pjanic, Sanela Nesimovic), (16) Visual mathematics and geometry, the &quot;final&quot; step: projective geometry through linear algebra (Emil Molnàr, Istvàn Prok and Jeno Szirmai), (17) Is any angle a right angle? (Vladimir Volenec), (18) An interesting analogy of Kimberling-Yff's problem (Zdenka Kolar-Begovic, Ružica Kolar- Šuper, Vladimir Volenec), (19) Pre-service teachers and statistics: an empirical study about attitudes and reasoning (Ljerka Jukic Matic, Ana Mirkovic Moguš, Marija Kristek), (20) Beliefs about mathematics and mathematics teaching of students in mathematics education programme at the Department of Mathematics, University of Zagreb (Aleksandra Cižmešija, Željka Milin Šipuš), (21) Self-reported creativity of primary school teachers and students of teacher studies in diverse domains, and implications of creativity relationships to teaching mathematics in the primary school (Željko Racki, Ana Katalenic, Željko Gregorovic), (22) How Croatian mathematics teachers organize their teaching in lower secondary classrooms: differences according to the initial education (Ljerka Jukic Matic, Dubravka Glasnovic Gracin), and (23) Structures of Croatian Mathematics Textbooks (Goran Trupcevic, Anda Valent). An index is included. Individual chapters contain references, tables, figures, and footnotes. The papers are written in English, and at the end of each paper is a summary on the original language of the author. [The following entities sponsored this work: Osijek--Baranja County, Osijek--City Government, Osijek Mathematical Society, Ministry of Science, Education and Sports of the Republic of Croatia, Tvornica reklama d.o.o., Osijek.]