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Improper Use of Physics‐Related Context in High School Mathematics Problems: Implications for Learning and Teaching
Author(s) -
Korsunsky Boris
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
school science and mathematics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.135
H-Index - 2
eISSN - 1949-8594
pISSN - 0036-6803
DOI - 10.1111/j.1949-8594.2002.tb17904.x
Subject(s) - mathematics education , context (archaeology) , physics education , simple (philosophy) , mathematics , epistemology , paleontology , philosophy , biology
This article discusses potential pedagogical difficulties arising from using physics‐related contexts in high‐school mathematics problems. It is suggested that such problems should not require any external knowledge of physics by the students; meanwhile, the problems should not contradict the physics knowledge that the students may already have. Several examples of recently published textbook problems are presented along with the discussion of the context pitfalls. A simple technique (SCAN list) is proposed for evaluating the physics‐related mathematics problems.