Investigating Economy as a Mean to Rejuvenate Fossilized Mathematical Knowledge

Year 2018, Volume: 10 , 248 - 253, 12.09.2018

Pierre Job Jean Yves Gantoıs

Abstract

Teaching to first years at
university level, we invariably had to deal with students having trouble with
what we considered to be basic knowledge, like first degree equations. This issue
was of paramount importance to us because most of the subsequent knowledge we
had to teach relied, to some extent, on this basic knowledge. At some point we
had to recognize the fact that recalling what a first degree equation was, was a
completely inefficient strategy: students were bored to hear about the same
concepts over and over again. Teaching in a business and management school led
us to investigate the possibility of using economy as a mean to give these
“old” mathematical concepts a second life. From a didactical point of view, our
approach was to, sort of, reverse the connection between mathematics and
economy. We went from “mathematics as a tool for economy” to “economy as a
semiotic model of mathematics”. Our investigation is still at a preliminary
stage. However, what we have found so far hints at the possibility of using
this approach to have students gain a new and fresh interest in what they
believed to be well-known mathematical concepts and moreover have them create,
manipulate and reflect upon mathematics through the lenses of economy, so reshaping
the very meaning of some mathematical concepts and letting them have the
opportunity to experience a dual relationship between mathematics and economy,
each one  being in turn modeled by the
other one.

Keywords

Duality, Semiotic model, Fossilized knowledge, Relationship with knowledge, Transition between secondary school and university

References

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