scholarly journals Playing Entropy Mastermind can Foster Children’s Information-Theoretical Intuitions

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elif Özel ◽  
Jonathan D. Nelson ◽  
Lara Bertram ◽  
Laura Martignon
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Mathematics Education ◽  
Probability Distribution ◽  
Primary School ◽  
Probability Distributions ◽  
Modern Science ◽  
School Intervention ◽  
Science And Society ◽  
And Mathematics ◽  
Information Today

Conceptual descriptions and measures of information and entropy were established in the twentieth century with the emergence of a science of communication and information. Today these concepts have come to pervade modern science and society, and are increasingly being recommended as topics for science and mathematics education. We introduce a set of playful activities aimed at fostering intuitions about entropy and describe a primary school intervention that was conducted according to this plan. Fourth grade schoolchildren (8–10 years) played a version of Entropy Mastermind with jars and colored marbles, in which a hidden code to be deciphered was generated at random from an urn with a known, visually presented probability distribution of marble colors. Children prepared urns according to specified recipes, drew marbles from the urns, generated codes and guessed codes. Despite not being formally instructed in probability or entropy, children were able to estimate and compare the difficulty of different probability distributions used for generating possible codes.

Teaching programming and mathematics in practice: A case study from a Swedish primary school

2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 483-496
Author(s):  
Henrik Stigberg ◽  
Susanne Stigberg
Keyword(s):  
Mathematics Education ◽  
Primary School ◽  
Computational Thinking ◽  
Thinking Skills ◽  
First Semester ◽  
Elementary School Education ◽  
And Mathematics ◽  
Ninth Grade Students ◽  
The Relationship

Programming and computational thinking have emerged as compulsory skills in elementary school education. In 2018, Sweden has integrated programming in mathematics education with the rationale that it fosters problem solving and logical thinking skills and motivates students to learn mathematics. We investigated how teachers introduce programming in mathematics education in a Swedish primary school using an explorative case study. We followed four mathematics teachers during the first semester in which programming was mandatory. They taught second-, sixth- and ninth-grade students. Our contributions are threefold: we provide an account of how programming is taught in mathematics education; we discuss how teachers reflect on the challenge of teaching programming in mathematics; and we report on students’ understanding of programming and their view on the relationship between programming and mathematics.

Sulaymân al-Harâ’irî (1824-1877): his attempts to reconcile the Islamic civilization with modern science and mathematics education

2020 ◽  
pp. 177-191
Author(s):  
Mahdi Abdeljaouad ◽  
Pierre Ageron
Keyword(s):  
Mathematics Education ◽  
Mathematical Knowledge ◽  
Language Translation ◽  
Modern Science ◽  
Arabic Language ◽  
Comprehensive Treatise ◽  
And Mathematics ◽  
Unpublished Manuscripts ◽  
Islamic Civilization ◽  
Practical Geometry

Who was Sulaymân al-Harâ’irî? Little is known about this enigmatic and controversial scholar. Born in Tunis in 1824, he settled in Paris in 1856 and died there in 1877. His unpublished manuscripts contain many translations into Arabic of French books, several of which are pertinent to mathematics. He translated arithmetic textbooks by Hippolyte Vernier, a surveying textbook by G. Frédéric Olivier and La Lande’s survey on uses of logarithms. He also drew up the plan for a comprehensive treatise on practical geometry, thus apparently laying the foundation for a Euro-Islamic hybrid mathematical knowledge. Keywords: Tunisia, Arabic language, translation, hybridization, arithmetic, logarithms, practical geometry

SISTERS IN SCIENCE: CONFRONTING EQUITY IN SCIENCE AND MATHEMATICS EDUCATION

2000 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 14
Author(s):  
Penny L. Hammrich ◽  
Greer M. Richardson ◽  
Beverly D. Livingston
Keyword(s):  
Mathematics Education ◽  
And Mathematics

scholarly journals Problematizing teaching and learning mathematics as “given” in STEM education

2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yeping Li ◽  
Alan H. Schoenfeld
Keyword(s):  
Mathematics Education ◽  
Stem Education ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Science Technology ◽  
Teaching And Learning Mathematics ◽  
Learning Mathematics ◽  
Alternative Approach ◽  
And Mathematics ◽  
Scientific Engineering

AbstractMathematics is fundamental for many professions, especially science, technology, and engineering. Yet, mathematics is often perceived as difficult and many students leave disciplines in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) as a result, closing doors to scientific, engineering, and technological careers. In this editorial, we argue that how mathematics is traditionally viewed as “given” or “fixed” for students’ expected acquisition alienates many students and needs to be problematized. We propose an alternative approach to changes in mathematics education and show how the alternative also applies to STEM education.

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