"Creative Exploration in Math Classroom" - Research Paper

ABSTRACT:

Mathematics expresses itself everywhere around us, in all phases of life. Sometimes presence and application of mathematics seems separated from the natural world but in reality, small reflections and thinking can help us to see math all around us. ‘Everyday Mathematics’ is a set of expressions on the role of mathematics in everyday life, through science, technology, tradition, culture etc. The presence of ‘Math in Nature’ is a tremendous resource for the classroom but too often mathematical concepts are forced on students with no relevance in real/natural world. This insufficient conveying of concepts lead to faulty development of various concepts which further results in developing aversion towards mathematics among students. Shortfall of examples, discussions and reflections on Math around us can lead to contribution in the abstractness of it which further advances the barricades in achieving one of the aims of Mathematics Education given in National Curriculum Framework 2005, i.e. students should be able to handle abstractness.

Mathematics’ teaching shall empower students to feel the presence of math around them and to use math in sharing/expressing their observations and experiences. Students should be able to visualize mathematical aspects around them and they should be able to explain the same creatively. Visualizing mathematics helps students to handle real life problems and embraces the problem solving approach of mathematics.

This paper presents an empirical study done on 40 students of IX grade about how students see their surroundings and nature through mathematical lens. This paper helps to understand mathematical thinking of students that they use to visualize the nature and surroundings.  It also suggests the scope to enhance creativity in mathematics classroom and highlights the domains where students are lagging behind to relate mathematical knowledge in their surroundings.

Creative representations and explanations given by students through sketches in math classroom during the study provide some exceptional insights which expose how uniquely students can interpret the same topic.

*the paper was presented in NCERT's National Conference on Mathematics Teaching – Approaches and Challenges in RIE Bubhneshwar 2016 by the authors Jahangir and Sourabh Garg