Journal of Theory & Practice in Curriculum

What ain’t mathematics education?!

Zahra Gooya

Abstract: In 1996 at the first Iranian Mathematics Education Conference (IMEC1) that was held in Isfahan. I obliged myself as a mathematics educator, to inform the mathematics community at large by presenting a paper entitled “what is mathematics education?” to pave the way for the establishment of the master program of mathematics education in Iran. Now, after 16 years, we need to reflect on this rapid development and ask ourselves that “what is not count as mathematics education”. In responding to this serious question, a metaanalysis was conducted that its data consisted of the PDF files of all the rejected research papers to the IMEC12 that were coded and all the personal identification for them were removed. The main purpose of this study is to reflect on what has happened in last 16 years, hoping to “learn from the past to avoid its repetition!”

The characteristics of mathematical word problems at the middle school and suggested strategies to facilitae their solution process

Majid Haghverdi

Abstract: This paper, first it has reviewed the literature on the characteristics of mathematical word problems and their solution process. The review revealed that among the root causes for students’ difficulties with mathematical word problems, two factors are salient, namely the text complexity and the unfamiliar context. To shed more light on these findings, a factorial experimental study was designed with 80 grade 7 students from a school in middle class residents. These students were randomly put into the four groups of 20 each two as experimental and two as control group. Four tests were administered as pre-tests and post- tests to compare the students regarding their problem solving skills with the intervention of two kinds of rewording familiarization and personalization. The major finding of this study is that the rewording per se has meaningful effect on students’ understanding and solving of word problem.

The trace of realistic mathematics education in the school mathematics in Iran

Soheila Gholamazad

Abstract: In the late 70's, in reaction to both "New Math" movement in the United States and "mechanistic mathematics education" approach to mathematics education in Netherland, Realistic Mathematics Education (RME) has been introduced by Freudenthal and his colleagues. In this educational approach, Freudenthal considered mathematics as a human activity. Based on this approach, education should give students the opportunity to re-invent mathematics by doing appropriate activities. Recently, the National curriculum of Islamic Republic of Iran has been developed by the Ministry of Education to provide educational policies. In this document, an implicit emphasis on so called “realistic” aspect of the program can be seen in the mathematics curriculum framework section. In this paper, I first, introduce the different aspects of RME, and then this educational approach has been traced in the newly written mathematics textbooks in Iran.

An Historical Study of High School Mathematics Textbooks since the Establishment of the Formal Education System in Iran

Mani Rezaie

Abstract: Study on curriculum movement and variation of the mathematics textbooks in Iran is one of the fields that few studies have been accomplished, and in this field there have been no investigation reports or any particular results of such these studies. This paper deals with a short report of a comprehensive research in this field from the beginning of formal education curriculum in Iran for high school (1925) to 2008 (the time of gathering the data). In this research following subjects on high school curriculum are investigated: 1) Historical changes and overall evolution of formal educational system, 2) Five historic periods on changed of math textbooks, 3) Changes of curriculum based on the math subjects. I tried all the school textbooks to be considered and the content of them mathematically to be investigated. This paper deals with a conclusion by reviewing trigonometry as one of the school topics and its changes during this interval.

Modelling and application: A research domain in mathematics education

Aboulfazl Rafiepour

Abstract: The main purpose of this paper is introducing modelling and application as a research domain in mathematics education through reviewing related literature. The first purpose of this review is to give a more clear meaning of modelling and application, and base on that, makes the distinction between modelling in mathematics education & modelling in other scientific domains. There are some other terms like Numeracy Quantitative literacy Mathematization and Word Problems that with some tolerance, are taken as equivalent term to modelling. However, modelling has salient differences with every one of them. Second purpose of this paper, is to introduce modelling cycle and its steps. Third, some researches who are working in the domain of modelling and application will be reviewed and then methodology and results of one of them will be mentioned. Finally, several open research questions for future research in the domain of modeling and application will be announced.

Investigating the process of problem posing

Mojtaba Eskandari

Abstract: In the first part of this study, first a brief introduction of problem posing was present and then, some frameworks and classifications of problem posing were reviewed. In the second part of the study the research that has been conducted in Iran was introduced. This quasi-experimental study was conducted with experimental and control groups which aimed to investigate the impact of fostering mathematics problem posing skills on 8th grade students’ ability to solve mathematical problems. The findings of the first part showed that problem posing skills was associated with problem solving ability, creativity and divergent thinking, and they improved each other. Problem posing process also could be used as a tool to gain a greater awareness of what's going on in the minds of students. T-test analysis of the second part of paper showed that doing problem posing activities in the classroom made a significant difference in students' problem solving skills.

Developing a model to enhance elementary teachers’ ability to foster functional thinking and algebraic reasoning in elementary students

Nasim Asghari

Abstract: This study explores the process of change of grades 3 to 5 elementary teachers, who participated in a professional development program "Algebraic Thinking: Foundation of Elementary Mathematics". Algebraic thinking as a functional thinking was the centerpiece of the program. The “Concern Base Adaptation Model” (CBAM) was used as methodology. The results of the study showed the significant changes in information, program management and task designing of teachers. Significantly, their understanding about functional thinking progressed. Finally a model was designed for integrating functional thinking in elementary mathematics curriculum as a result of this study.