Innovation in education. Commentary: Teaching statistics using dance and movement and a case for neuroscience in mathematics education

Frontiers in Psychology

Carl Senior¹ 

关键词: mathematics;    dance cognition;    numerical cognition;    pedagogy;    innovation;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00694

学科分类：心理学（综合）

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

Mathematical expertise is central to our understanding of science, drives innovation throughout all aspects of society and ultimately facilitates the economy of nations (OECD, 2010). There is little doubt as to its importance and as such it is taught to varying degrees of success across nearly all educational systems (Kaiser and Sriraman, 2006). Yet certain cultures regularly still show an advantage over others in developing mathematical expertise (Tcheang, 2014). Take the example of the competencies revealed in Asian cultures that may be due, in part, to the almost ubiquitous use of the abaci throughout Schools in Asia (Brinkworth, 1997). Regular training on the abacus during the formative school years has been shown to recruit cortical regions that are implicated in the computation of visuospatial processing in the service of mathematical computations (Hatano et al., 1977; Stigler, 1984; Ku et al., 2012). Such evidence highlights the effectiveness of certain interventions within school level educational programmes that drive competencies in later life but also shows that interventions do have an impact at the cortical level. What is not known is whether there are other such naturalistic interventions that could be developed to improve mathematical competency.

【 授权许可】

CC BY