Browsing by Author "Virkkunen, Lotta"

The purpose of this research is to investigate learning material from the point of view of developing mathematical thinking. My research problem is to view at how textbooks develop pupils' mathematical thinking and by what kind of means. According to the new curriculum, textbooks and mathematics teaching should be used to develop students' mathematical thinking and languaging. My research question is based on studies that the teaching of mathematics has always relied on the learning materials knowledge of studying and teaching. However, with the new curriculum for the basic education in 2014, languaging in mathematics and mathematical thinking have become important in mathematics teaching and studying and in the evaluation of teaching. The study has explored the written material on the subject of mathematics teaching and mathematical thinking goals and how it should be reflected in teaching. It aims to find out the meaning of languaging in mathematics, which is related to mathematical thinking. Kymppi-textbooks for the grade of 3rd – 4th were used in this study. I view the textbooks from the point of view of the curriculum’s goals. I chose the best entities from the subjects of book, that could develop students’ mathematical thinking and languaging in mathematics. For my research, I chose from the mathematical subjects’, specific objectives for mathematical thinking and objectives that are relevant to the relationship between the previously learned (T2), the making of questions and conclusions based on observations (T3), the presentation of answers to others using tools, orally and with the help of ICT (T4), problem solving skills development (T5), to consider the rationality and meaningfulness of the result (T6) and thinking and to learn the skills of learning (L1). Textbooks were studied by studying exercize and picking tasks that were appropriate for the goals out of them, which were used as examples for the research. There were many assignments in the textbooks which are based on the goals of the curriculum. However, part of the assignments focused on a certain kind of formula, by which the students were doing the tasks. This formula could be repeated in many different tasks of different subjects. When viewing the assignments, many of the goals of thinking skills were not accomplished and the languaging of solutions were left out of textbooks. For this reason, it would be good to study the teachers and their practical knowledge to develop pupils’ languaging and thinking skills in mathematics.