Why is the new IB diploma mathematics curriculum trying to encourage concept based teaching and lear
Traditional pedagogy has focused on rote memorization of facts and skills with little attention paid to the conceptual relationships involved in mathematics. As passionate educators of mathematics, many want to encourage a shift in pedagogy by framing the content and skills of mathematics with conceptual understandings. Table 4 illustrates an example of an overarching generalization and a topical generalization that I have from my book. Statements of conceptual understandings are intended for teachers’ reference only as in a concept-based model we do not tell students what they need to understand; we draw these conceptual understandings from students through inductive, inquiry based learn
Often when I met people for the first time and tell them I am a math educator, the majority of the time I receive the reaction “Oh I hated math at school and I’m just not a math person!” This reaction greatly saddens me but is the product of years of being exposed to the drill and kill approach to math learning. With the exponential growth in technology, knowledge has become a commodity. Our students are able to Google any answer or technique so education needs to focus on teaching students what to do with the knowledge and how to apply and transfer their knowledge to different situations. Math learning should be about developing conceptual understanding in order to prepare our students for
Math is often taught focusing on rote memorization and “drill and kill” methods with little attention paid to the beauty and creativity of the concepts that form this discipline. This approach has resulted in a pandemic of math anxiety and fear for the discipline which needs to be addressed and eradicated. Math education needs to undergo a reform to encourage inquiry-based, constructivist methods that focus on building conceptual understanding. Due to a shortage of in-field teachers, math teachers are sometimes not well-prepared, through no fault of their own, or out-of-field teachers and many focus on following a textbook and teaching procedural rote methods. More professional development
