Publication at Faculty of Education |
2012
Abstract
Problem solving is at heart of teaching mathematics at schools. It is not enough just to choose suitable problems.
There exist a whole range of approaches how to work with problems in teaching. The use of tasks differs in the role the pupil plays in their solutions, in the cognitive difficulty of tasks which pupils must solve, in the measure of the teacher's control over the situation, etc.
In the article, one concrete use of a potentially motivating task in teaching is discussed. It is the kind of tasks in which the situation must first be drawn and then the solving strategy should be found - to identify a right triangle in the picture and apply Pythagoras' theorem.