Problem solving as a challenge for mathematics education in The Netherlands

By Michiel Doorman, Paul Drijvers, Truus Dekker, Marja Van den Heuvel-Panhuizen, J. Lange, Monica Wijers. 2007

116 citations recorded by the source corpus.

This paper deals with the challenge to establish problem solving as a living domain in mathematics education in The Netherlands. While serious attempts are made to implement a problem-oriented curriculum based on principles of realistic mathematics education with room for modelling and with integrated use of technology, the PISA 2003 results suggest that this has been successful in educational practice only to a limited extent. The main difficulties encountered include institutional factors such as national examinations and textbooks, and issues concerning design and training. One of the main challenges is the design of good problem solving tasks that are original, non-routine and new to the students. It is recommended to pay attention to problem solving in primary education and in textbook series, to exploit the benefits of technology for problem solving activities and to use the schools’ freedom to organize school-based examinations for types of assessment that are more appropriate for problem solving.

Subfields: Education, Statistics and Probability

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/eacbf306508e1ba304a910fff01ffc72873d35b8

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Education

1. G. Philippou
2. Hanneke Kodde-Buitenhuis
3. K.P.E. Gravemeijer
4. I. Segovia
5. J. Lupiáñez
6. Daniela Olivares
7. Michiel Doorman
8. Iliada Elia

In Statistics and Probability

1. Hanneke Kodde-Buitenhuis
2. K.P.E. Gravemeijer
3. I. Segovia
4. J. Lupiáñez
5. Daniela Olivares
6. Michiel Doorman
7. Iliada Elia
8. L. M. Doorman

Citations in the corpus

• Teachers’ concerns and efficacy beliefs about implementing a mathematics curriculum reform: integrating two lines of inquiry (2010, background): “Teachers have increasingly been considered the centerpiece of educational change rather than mere executors of policies enforced on them ( Datnow, Hubbard & Mehan, 2002 ; D uke,2004).”
• Emergent modeling: discrete graphs to support the understanding of change and velocity (2009, background): “Well-chosen context problems offer students opportunities to develop informal, highly context-specific models and solving strategies ( Doorman et al., 2007 ).”
• Roles and characteristics of problem solving in the mathematics curriculum: a review (2020, background): “For Doorman et al. (2007), external assessment tests cause great difficulty due to the very limited presence of non-routine problems.”
• Exploring strategy use and strategy flexibility in non-routine problem solving by primary school high achievers in mathematics (2009, background): “The tendency not to write down one’s reasoning is a general attitude, as other studies showed similar results in different mathematical tasks ( Doorman et al. 2007 ).”
• Assessing mathematical thinking as part of curriculum reform in the Netherlands (2019, background): “Problems, in this view, are tasks that are non-routine to the student and invite to think of a possible solution strategy (Doorman et al., 2007).”