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    Changes in Mathematics

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    Ronald Dalida
    Mathematics is one of the subjects most studied, taken up at the Pre-K level all the way to college.

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    Changes in Mathematics

    Uploaded by

    Ronald Dalida
    572 views4 pages
    Mathematics is one of the subjects most studied, taken up at the Pre-K level all the way to college.

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    © © All Rights Reserved

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    Mathematics is one of the subjects most studied, taken up at the Pre-K level all the way to college.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    572 views4 pages

    Changes in Mathematics

    Uploaded by

    Ronald Dalida
    Mathematics is one of the subjects most studied, taken up at the Pre-K level all the way to college.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    of 4

    CHANGES IN MATHEMATICS

    What is it about Mathematics that compels us to put so much emphasis and focus on its
    learning? Mathematics is one of the subjects most studied, taken up at the Pre-K level all the way
    to college. Te Philippine mathematics basic education curriculum has undergone several
    revisions over the years. In 1983, the New Elementary School Curriculum (NESC) was
    implemented, followed by the New Secondary Education Curriculum (better known as the
    Secondary Education Development Program or SEDP Curriculum), which was launched in 1988.
    After curricular reviews that began in 1995, the Department of Education, Culture and Sports
    (DECS, now Department of Education) decided to adopt the Refined Basic Education
    Curriculum (RBEC) in 2002.

    Despite the many changes to the curriculum, the goals of mathematics education at the
    basic education level remain more or less the same: “to provide opportunities for individuals to
    develop skills and attitudes needed for effective participation in everyday living and prepare
    them for further education and the world of work so that they make worthwhile contributions to
    the society at large” (Pascua, 1993).

    Mathematics, as we see it, has the following roles in Philippine Education: facilitating
    participation in productive life activities, providing a way of making sense of the world, serving
    as a means of communication and operating as a gateway to national progress.

    Mathematics for facilitating participation in productive life activities

    Everyone needs mathematics. Regardless of sex, culture, socio-economic status, religion


    or educational background, all people have one way or another, needed to apply some form of
    mathematical knowledge in dealing with their day-to-day activities. One cannot deny the
    practical uses of mathematics in, for example, making wise purchases, measuring distances,
    finding locations, estimating expenses and anticipating future problems to find solutions early
    enough, to name a few (Ogena and Tan, 2006).

    Mathematics as a way of making sense of the world

    More than just a set of isolated facts and concepts, mathematics provides us with “ways
    of knowing”, thinking and understanding (Bernardo, 1998). Doing mathematics requires logical
    thought and trains students to think both critically and creatively. In school, students usually
    encounter specific problems that apply to the topic at hand, in addition, the thought process that
    goes into understanding the problem, differentiating what is essential from what is not, being
    able to make connections among the given information to generate a solution and verifying its
    accuracy is surely something that students can apply even in non-mathematical settings.
    Mathematics provides students with the essential skills in reasoning, decision-making and
    problem solving to help them make sense of many aspects of our rapidly changing world (FAPE,
    1988). Further, it promotes self-refection and develops one’s ability to face life’s problems
    (Manuel, 1979). In short, mathematics is a means of empowerment and understanding that
    everyone is entitled to.

    Mathematics as a means of communication

    Mathematics provides us with a powerful means of communication – an objective


    language that allows us to express quantifiable relationships concisely (Ogena and Tan, 2006).
    Trough mathematics, we can formulate representations to model and interpret both physical and
    social phenomena. Mathematics is the unifying and integral thread that runs through the sciences
    (NRC, 1986), facilitating the connection of ideas in an increasingly information and knowledge
    driven society (Ogena and Tan, 2006).

    Mathematics as a gateway for national progress

    Since a country’s economic progress relies heavily on its progress in science and
    engineering, this demands a strong foundation in mathematics (Pascua, 1993 and Ogena and Tan,
    2006). Mathematics is seen as “an essential tool for intelligent participation in a technological
    society” (FAPE, 1988). As the level of mathematics needed in the workplace continues to
    increase, its study is indispensable in order to develop a “scientifically and technologically
    literate citizenry” (UP NISMED, 2001).

    In many countries, mathematics courses are seen to be “gatekeeper” courses that


    determine one’s future success and acceptance into colleges and universities (Gates and Vistro-
    Yu, 2003; Te College Board, 2000, 1990). Such is not the case locally - Filipino students are not
    barred from attending a good university directly on account of the lack of specific courses in
    their high school transcript. In general, our students do not choose their own mathematics
    electives; instead, most Philippine schools cover at least a standard set of mathematical courses
    required of all graduates necessary to prepare them for life after basic education. In a country
    where only about 19.1% of the population receives any education beyond that in the high school
    level (NSO, 2003), knowledge of mathematics courses offered at the basic education level can be
    thought of as a “gatekeeper” for employability and a successful and productive citizenship. On a
    national level, knowledge of mathematics is a valuable tool for social development and global
    competitiveness in our changing world. As we develop the mathematical proficiency and literacy
    of individual Filipino students, they, in turn, contribute to the skills, values and collective
    intellectual resources of the Philippines, increasing our nation’s funds of knowledge.

    Roles of Mathematics Intertwined

    These roles are not disjoint from one another and more often than not, are intertwined and
    complement one another. For the significant role it plays in our lives as Filipinos, mathematics is
    indeed worthy of the focus and attention it receives in our curriculum. It is our hope that through
    this framework, we can help educators enrich their students’ lives as they give them the gift of a
    high quality mathematics education.
    The role of mathematics in the real world

    In response to whether they think math is useful in the real world or not, I think many
    people would answer "yes". However, there would also be a few people who are hard pressed to
    find and answer when asked to be specific in what ways they think math is useful. This is
    because they possibly haven't quite noticed that mathematics penetrates the so-called fields of
    social sciences, not to mention the natural sciences, and contributes to them.

    Let me give you an example you may be familiar with. When shopping at a convenience
    store, the barcode printed on the product is scanned and the sum is charged. The barcode isn't
    only there to calculate the price; it also sends information on the purchased product and time of
    purchase etc. to the convenience store headquarters instantaneously. Furthermore, when a point
    card is produced, the purchaser's gender and age etc. are known, indispensible information for
    marketing strategies such as product development and product delivery times. Because huge
    amounts of this data comes up on a daily basis, how to effectively extract and read beneficial
    information and patterns from large volumes and large scale data is the key to setting up
    marketing strategies. Various data analysis methods developed in statistical science and machine
    learning are used for this purpose.

    Mathematics is essential to actuarial science and pension mathematics professionals


    called actuaries. Furthermore, in practical implementation of mobile phones, codes using algebra
    and number theory, security and information compression technology are indispensable.
    Geometry is put to use in the visualization of animation production and computer graphics, and
    conformational analysis of protein in life science. Mathematical analysis, numerical analysis and
    mathematical computation are essential for control technology needed to safely start, run and
    stop automobiles, and practical implementation of the most environmentally friendly cars such as
    electric cars and hybrids. Furthermore, mathematics and mathematical sciences comes in useful
    in a variety of fields such as unraveling the mechanisms of traffic jams, telecommunications
    technology, virus displacement predictions, disease predictions and development of new
    medicines in genome data analysis, and high precision spam detection in search engines. I think
    we can see the reason behind mathematics being called the common language of science.

    Technology that learns from the past, and then predicts and controls future phenomena

    In the high-speed information technology environment of the 21st century, I think that
    everybody has experienced the rapid improvements in lifestyle convenience. However, in today's
    society where it is becoming ever more complex and uncertain, it is a fact that we are living our
    lives while being surrounded by various risks at all times. For example, the risk of having an
    automobile accident, the risk of damage from earthquakes or other disasters such as typhoons
    which frequently hit our country, or the risk of contracting a lifestyle disease, the list is endless.
    There was a huge outcry when the Great East Japan Earthquake and Fukushima nuclear accident
    was taken to be a risk beyond expectations. Even when the probability of occurrence is
    extremely low, if you multiply the cost for the damage, the numbers appear colossal.

    When introducing mathematical theorem, there is no such word as beyond expectations.


    Every possibility is identified and a single theorem is constructed. For this reason, mathematics
    is said to be a useful study for acquiring logical thinking. As well as working out how
    mathematical results can be useful in society, I believe it is necessary to look at the importance
    of mathematics as a study that nurtures logical thinking for making appropriate predictions for
    the future in today's complicated world.

    We may still require a lot of time to acquire technology that studies the past and predicts
    and controls future phenomena. I believe that mathematics and mathematical science, as a study
    which analyzes risks associated with nuclear power, hydrogen infrastructure, and space systems,
    and provides useful problem-solving technology in the sciences such as seismology that wages
    battle against nature, and meteorology, has an increasingly important role to play.

    Mathematics supporting the foundations of science and industrial technology

    The rapid improvements of high-level development and user environments of both


    hardware and software of calculators in recent years, in various scientific fields such as life
    science, information technology and nano-technology, has undergone tremendous changes at a
    pace we could never have envisaged while the creation of new fields of study continue. Amidst
    that transformation, the academic needs of mathematics and mathematical science have
    intensified rapidly. At the same time, problems posed in each field provide feedback for
    mathematics, leading to expectations for the development of new academic fields within the
    framework of mathematics.

    Under these circumstances, the strong call for the necessity of mathematics in
    circumstances surrounding mathematical research in major countries and the sciences in Japan,
    and the necessity for promotion of joint research with other fields was concurrently
    recommended as policy in 2006 in the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and
    Technology National Institute of Science and Technology Policy report The Forgotten Science-
    Mathematics and the Mathematical Society of Japan and Science Council of Japan Mathematics
    Committee symposium Foundation Study: Mathematics -Cooperation Between Mathematical
    Research and the Sciences and Industrial Technology. This gave rise to new doubts into the way
    of mathematical research, and can be said to be the catalyst for mathematical researchers
    rediscovering the importance of mathematics as a study supporting the foundation of the sciences
    and industrial technology.

    Prepared By:

    JOSEPH C. VILLAGEN BSED IV-A(TTH 4:30-6:00)

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