The Cultivation Of Mathematical Symbol Sense Of Students In Grade Seven

In the Mathematics Curriculum Standards for Compulsory Education(2011 edition),the translation of "Symbol Sense" is different from the original in 2001 edition,and teachers are clearly required to strengthen the cultivation of students'symbol sense in the process of mathematics classroom teaching.Grade seven is the stage when students begin to contact a large number of mathematical symbols,and it is also the key stage to form symbol sense,however,it is found that students' level of symbol sense is low.In addition,the cultivation of symbol sense has not attracted enough attention from front-line teachers.So the purpose of this paper is to improve students' levels of mathematical symbol sense and provide practical and feasible cultivation strategies for front-line teachers.Qualitative and quantitative research methods are mainly adopted in this study.Firstly,the definition of symbol sense and its basic components are confirmed through reading the literatures.Secondly,students are conducted to questionnaire survey,and teachers are interviewed to analyze the status quo of mathematics symbol sense of students in grade seven and first-line teachers' cognition of the cultivation of symbol sense.Thirdly,preliminary teaching strategies are putting forward,and then designing teaching cases involving different learning contents according to different types of courses.Finally,combing with questionnaires and interview analysis,the strategies to cultivate symbol sense in mathematics teaching are discussed on the base of the effect of teaching cases.The conclusions of this study are as follows:(1)The current situation of the students' mathematical symbol sense is not optimistic,and their sense of active application of mathematical symbols is low;(2)The lack of attention paid by front-line teachers to the symbol sense leads to the phenomenon that results are emphasized rather than processes in the daily teaching of symbols;(3)The strategies and means of cultivating symbol sense have their own characteristics in different types of lessons.Therefore,according to the results of teaching cases,the strategies and suggestions given in this study are as follows:for new lessons,emphasis should be laid on revealing the process of introducing mathematical symbols;for review lessons,emphasis should be laid on the exchange of mathematical symbol language;for commentary lessons,emphasis should be laid on analyzing mathematical thinking and methods of the symbol;and for exercise lessons,emphasis should be laid on the training of operation of mathematical symbols.