e-Pedagogium 2008, 8(1):19-27

Can we Play with Mathematics?

Radka Dofková
Mgr. Radka Dofková, Ph.D., Department of Mathematics, Faculty of Education, Palacký University, Olomouc, Žižkovo nám. 5, 77140 Olomouc, Czech Republic, E-mail: radka.dofkova@upol.cz, phone: + 420 585 635 709

Teachers have been constantly facing a problem how to make mathematics more interesting to pupils. Motivation plays definitely the most important role in this respect. It is motivation that assigns subjective sense to the learning activities of the pupil. It has been shown a number of times that solving non-standard tasks, projects, games or other motivational activities can help to change the way mathematics is viewed as only a school subject. The above-mentioned activities can have a formative influence on the pupil only on condition that the teacher knows the pupil's personality, creates such environment for his/her learning activities that the pupils themselves can organize their work so that they could take active part in the lesson and could perceive learning mathematics as solving interesting problems. We aim at showing that the word "to play" need not collocate with spare-time activities only. On contrary, it can help in making mathematics more popular. It is shown with presentation of the activities which were realised in the STM Morava project.

Keywords: mathematics, motivation, mathematical activities, constructivist view of education, creative view of education, STM Morava, didactic game

Published: February 1, 2008  Show citation

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Dofková, R. (2008). Can we Play with Mathematics? e-Pedagogium, 8(1), 19-27
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