The Design Of Hands-on Activities In Mathematics Textbooks

Due to the recent curriculum reform of basic education, the experiential learning is paid highly attention by educators and is widely applied in mathematics classroom teaching. The traditional teaching pattern of teachers’ monologue has been transformed into student-led interaction. On the one hand, hands-on is the foundation of students’ mathematics learning and the initial phase of students’ understanding new knowledge. On the other hand, hands-on, through cross fusion with other mathematical learning approaches, can enrich students’ learning situation and help students experience the genesis and development of knowledge. In addition, students can feel the delight of success and enjoy mathematics learning in the process of doing practice.However, it is found through daily classroom view and research that there are problems like cognition deviation and improper operation even in first-line teachers’ application of this learning approach. The essential reason is that their understanding of the concept of hands-on is not deep enough, which leads to the result that they can not distinguish the hands-on and the simple hands-on activities or math games in textbooks. Also, in previous research related to hands-on, experts’ discussions mainly concentrated in the theoretical level, and first-line teachers focused mostly on describing specific implementation of practical doing strategies in classroom teaching. That is to say, there is blank in the research of the function of hands-on based on examples in textbooks. This thesis attempts to establish a connection between theory and practice, in order to provide a reference for first-line mathematics teachers of the further understanding of hands-on activities and to make learning strategy be applied in classrooms in a more scientific way.Documentary method and textual analysis will be used in the thesis to research the function of hands-on activities. First of all, a correct understanding is formed based on the literature review of hands-on and the concept is clearly defined. Second, the research object in the thesis is the mathematics textbook published by Beijing Normal University Press, the edition of year 2013. According to the definition strictly, the hands-on activities in the textbook are sorted out and the representative cases are analyzed emphatically. Finally, the scattered analysis results are systematically integrated, which leads to the conclusion of the specific effect of the hands-on activities in math textbooks on students’ mathematics learning.Through the research, the thesis draws the conclusion about the functions of the design of hands-on activities in textbooks, which are listed as follows: first, hands-on can help cultivate students’ space concept; Second, hands-on is advantageous to the development of the students’ plausible reasoning ability; Third, hands-on is beneficial to improve the students’ cognitive level; Fourth, hands-on activities can promote students to form good mathematics emotional experience.In addition, the thesis provides suggestions for first-line teachers about the efficient application of hands-on activities in mathematics classrooms: First, make hands-on activities distinguished from “hands-on” in the textbooks; Second, do full preparation for the activity before class; Third, seize the opportunity of activities in class; Forth, summarize the activity in time.