Approaches to the teaching and learning of Mathematics



Approaches to the teaching and learning of Mathematics

Meaningful Learning

Learning is a behavior that people are indulged in, ever since they were born. It refers to acquiring, reinforcing or modifying the current behaviors, knowledge and skills, preferences and values, for that matter. All these may include synthesizing of various types of information. Humans and animals have the ability to learn and develop their minds through learning and doing. As humans learn more, they develop new skills and learning curves. Learning is contextual, and not compulsory. It doesn't happen all of a sudden, it takes time to be built upon and shape up. Keeping this trend in mind, learning can also be viewed as more of a process, rather than just a collection of knowledge and facts, (Davidson, 1990). Changes are produced through learning, and these changes are of permanent in nature. Learning in humans may be seen as an essential part of personal development, education, training and schooling.

Meaningful learning pertains to a way of learning which is against the concept of rote learning. In this learning, acquiring new knowledge is linked with the acquisition of the previous one. Within the theory of meaningful cognitive theory, there are three processes: how knowledge develops; how the new knowledge is inter-linked with the current knowledge; and how this knowledge gets automated.

This paper focuses on the role of meaningful learning, and how it is different from just- learning. It discusses the importance of meaningful learning in the field of mathematics. It also discusses the network theory of meaningful learning, and speaks about the concept presented by Shuell and Moran. It also looks at the meaningful role that mathematics can perform in making sure that the learning of concepts is more important and crucial for understanding the various aspects of problem solving.

Types of representations that play an essential role in meaningful learning

There are various effects that play an essential part in meaningful learning, such as; practice effects, transfer effects, interference effects, organization effects and abstraction effects, for that matter. All these effects are discussed, as under;

Practice effects

It improves the distributed practice and retention. It is very effective than the one that requires massed practice. It is important for fast rates of presentations and stimulus material that is not familiar to the learners, (Schoenfeld, 1992). This is because through mass practice, learners can only relate to a single word with a single meaning. Distributed practice, on the other hand makes it possible for the learner to relate a word with various meanings.

Transfer effects

These are the effects of the prior learning, based on the learning of a material that is new. Positive transfer can take place when the previous learning makes the new learning a lot easy. On the other hand, negative transfer takes place when because of this transfer, the new learning becomes hard.

Interference effects

These effects take place when the memory pertaining to a certain material is disturbed by the previous ...