Special Focus
Background material
Aspects of problem solving
The following three quotations are taken from the Mathematics: 5-14 National Guidelines (1991) and are exemplified by the accompanying files.
'adopting an investigative approach to learning concepts, facts and techniques'
'working on tasks designed specifically to highlight the merits of certain approaches to mathematical thinking'
'using their mathematics in an enquiry which could be a part of a cross-curricular study'
The present position
HMIE sees problem solving as the least satisfactory of all the mathematics outcomes.
Common comments are:
- 'most teachers do some problem solving'
- 'there is no school plan for problem solving'
- 'teachers do not know what has gone before and what comes after their own stage in problem solving'
- 'there is uncertainty about what problem solving skills are'
- 'there is uncertainty about which strategies are appropriate for each stage'.
Standards and Quality in Primary Schools
The Standards and Quality in Primary Schools report made quite critical comments about the state of problem solving in Scottish primary schools.
Links to research
The internet gives a lot of information on research work in mathematics. In most cases only the researcher and the title of the research are given.