European Research in Mathematics Education I - Fakultät für ...

European Research in Mathematics Education I: Group 4 402
But students’ answer to these questions could be deformed by the effort (their own or
that of their parents and teachers) to gain good assessment (marks). The students (and
often also the teachers) do not realise that the result of mathematical education that is
reduced to the work according to certain instructions and rules is only formal
knowledge. Under „formal knowledge“ we mean a parrot-like knowledge, a
knowledge without understanding. It is a knowledge, which is preserved as isolated
memory data and it can be applied only in standard task situations. Outside of these
such knowledge is useless. Adjective „formal“ in no sense means here „symbolic“.
Therefore we look for the ways how to open up effectively to the students the world
of mathematics. For our needs we understand under the „world of mathematics“ the
area in which for the grasping of reality the student (with regard to his/her age) uses the
mathematical notions and the relations between them and mathematical as well as
nonmathematical experience gained until now. We seek how to ensure that pieces of
knowledge will be organic parts of the student´s cognitive net, that pieces of knowledge
will be connected to student’s experience and that students will be able to apply them in
the course of problem solving, especially of those from everyday life. In our opinion,
one of solutions is the involving of project into the mathematics education.
Our first projects arose spontaneously as a reaction to certain student’s suggestion or
as a means which should help to prevent the gaining only the formal knowledge as a
result of the teaching process.
However, gradually we started to assign the projects some specific aims (utilise the
projects during mathematics education purposefully). We also devoted our attention to
the theoretical questions that concern the particular phases of the work on projects
(preparation, realisation, evaluation, etc.). We connected the work of two groups -
Koman-Tichá (Koman & Tichá, 1996, 1997, 1998) and Kubínová-Novotná (Kubínová
1996, 1997, Kubínová, Novotná & Littler 1999) - and we utilised the results of their
research done hitherto.
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