14 Feb Mathematics as a Complex Problem-Solving Activity
[vc_row css_animation="" row_type="row" use_row_as_full_screen_section="no" type="full_width" angled_section="no" text_align="left" background_image_as_pattern="without_pattern" z_index=""][vc_column width="2/3"][vc_column_text css=".vc_custom_1550176167999{margin-bottom: 32px !important;}"] by Jacob Klerlein and Sheena Hervey, Generation Ready Rather than basing mathematics learning and teaching on memorized rules for computation, teachers need to be guided by the question: what do proficient mathematicians do as they solve increasingly complex problems? [/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]By the time young children enter school they are already well along the pathway to becoming problem solvers. From birth, children are learning how to learn: they respond to their environment and the reactions of others. This making sense of experience is an ongoing, recursive process. We have known for a long time that reading is a complex problem-solving activity. More recently, teachers have come to understand that becoming mathematically literate is also a complex problem-solving activity that increases in power and flexibility when practiced more often. A problem in mathematics is any situation that must be resolved using mathematical tools but for which there is no immediately obvious strategy. If the way forward is obvious, it’s not a problem—it is a straightforward application.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width="1/3" css=".vc_custom_1550174848958{margin-top: 15px !important;margin-bottom: 15px !important;}"][icon_text box_type="normal" icon="fa-file-pdf-o" icon_type="normal" icon_position="top" icon_size="fa-4x" use_custom_icon_size="no" separator="no" link="/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Mathematics-as-a-Complex-Problem-Solving-Activity.pdf" link_text="Download a PDF of this White Paper"][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css_animation="" row_type="row" use_row_as_full_screen_section="no" type="full_width" angled_section="no" text_align="left" background_image_as_pattern="without_pattern"][vc_column width="2/3"][vc_column_text]Mathematicians have always understood that problem-solving is central to their discipline because without a problem there is no mathematics. Problem-solving has played a central role in the thinking of educational theorists ever since the publication of Pólya’s book “How to Solve It,” in 1945....