Professional growth of mathematics literacy among two middle-school teachers in financial management

• Main Authors: Wu, Yu-Chen, 吳於臻
• Other Authors: 李源順
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2019
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/xvb2tj

碩士 === 臺北市立大學 === 數學系數學教育碩士在職專班 === 107 === This study aims to explore two junior high school teachers’ professional growth regarding the application of mathematical literacy to financial contexts as well as their performance in terms of integrating financial contexts into mathematics teaching. Participants’ initial knowledge of financial contexts has been examined, followed by the inquire into their ability to apply mathematical concept to those contexts. The research method case study is adopted. There are two participants in this study: the researcher and another mathematics teacher, who share information and discuss issues with each other. Recording, relevant information, and calculation notes of each discussion were collected and analyzed according to the different dimensions of the mathematical literacy and financial literacy of PISA. The results are stated below. I. The professional growth regarding the application of mathematical literacy to financial contexts: 1. In the beginning, the participants were unable to connect the issues about daily expense with any of the problems related to financial management and mathematics. As the study progressed, they started to recognize the financial information hidden in the issues, formed mathematical problems accordingly, applied relevant knowledge to solve the problems, and interpreted the results. 2. The participants’ attitude toward the financial product management has changed throughout the study, from passively accepting to actively exploring the issues. At first, they could only analyze the financial information based on the numbers of the monetary value; later, they were able to take other factors in addition to the monetary ones into consideration. Also, their abilities to apply mathematical concept to solve the related financial problems, to interpret the results and to analyze the information have been enhanced. 3. The participants’ understanding of individual finance has been improved and extended to educational, career, family and social dimensions, which meanwhile can affect their financial decisions in the future. II. The performance in terms of integrating financial contexts into mathematics teaching: The participants did not integrate financial contexts, which focused on the problems about daily expense, into their teaching for many times. The current mathematics curriculum in junior high school lacks of the problems related to financial management issues. The teacher share financial experience in the teaching , and design of the financial context that meets the student's level.