A Comparative Study On Plane Geometry Of Chinese And Singapore Textbooks

In the new reform of mathematics curriculum in the elementary education, the geometry curriculum, especially in the third study section (Grade7-Grade9), based on " Mathematics Curriculum Standard of the Full-time Compulsory Education (Experiment Manuscript) " (following we will abbreviate it " Standard ") has changed a lot in curriculum goal, curriculum content, curriculum organization and structure and so on. Regarding this, the domestic scholars have carried on widespread argument, the focal point of the argument is that:how to design the geometry curriculum especially the inference and proof more reasonably? In the practice, facing that change, teachers who have been influenced deeply by the conventional geometry feel puzzled, they can't grasp it accurately, and they don't know how to teach it well. All of the problems indicate that it is very necessary to do the deep research on the plane geometry.We embark from the view of textbook, take two versions textbooks in junior middle school for example; they are the version of People's Education Press, Singapore Mathematics. According to " Curriculum Standard ", we use the content analysis and the comparative method, carry on the quantitative evaluation and the qualitative analysis on the content of plane geometry of the two versions textbooks, from the content width, depth, connectedness, arraignment, expression and the composite difficulty of the proof by means of concept maps, the modle of composite difficulty and so on. Through the research, we obtain the following conclusions:First, the two countries both value the plane geometry highly. The plane geometry covers more than 25% in the two textbooks. Meanwhile, the version of People's Education Press contains more geometric knowledge than Mathematics and its geometric knowledge distributes in all grades.Second, Chinese textbook require more than Singapore textbook on the plane geometry while weaker than Singapore textbook in cultivating students'drawing.Third, the two textbooks are paying attention to the connection between mathematics knowledge. But in some specific issues, Mathematics handles better.Fourth, to analyze and compare current geometry content as evidenced by Chinese and Singapore textbooks with respect to the Van Hiele model, we found some comment characters:(1) The activities at different Van Hiele level cross, not in sequence; (2) The activities are concentrated on the level 3,4. It shows that the two textbooks pay attention to cultivate the students'high-level geometric thinking. (3) The textbooks introduce the new concepts from level 1 (visual) to level 5 (rigor).Fifth, Mathematics contains more standard graphics than the version of People's Education Press. But the layout design more lively in Chinese textbook. It is easy to arouse the students' interest.Last but not least, the geometric proof exercises in Chinese textbook are more difficulty than Singapore textbook while less in number.Based on the research, we propose some opinions and suggestions following:pay attention to the connection between mathematics knowledge, build the bridge between them; use the graphic variants to help students master the geometrical concepts; select some materials that can make student realize the necessity and importance of the proof.