Towards the Design of a Didactic Engineering Relying on Economy as a Semiotic Model of Mathematics

Year 2019, Volume: 13, 160 - 164, 31.08.2019

Pierre Job Jean-yves Gantoıs

Abstract

Teaching
mathematics, in a business and management school, led us to investigate the use
of economy as a way to give alternative meaning to mathematical concepts,
whether these concepts were already known to students - mostly from secondary
school - or not. The intent behind this idea was to reverse the traditional
connection between mathematics and economy. We tried to bridge the increasing
gap between what students coming from secondary school are really capable of,
irrespective of their grades, and what is expected from them in a business and
management school. Instead of mathematics seen as a tool for economy, where
mathematical theories are simply “applied” to economy, we developed an
engineering where economy is used as a semiotic model of mathematics.
Therefore, mathematics is not “applied” anymore to economy, it rather becomes
consubstantial to economy, both disciplines acting on each other. This paper
presents the structure of this engineering, the underlying hypothesis and the
didactic motivations behind it.

Keywords

Engineering, Semiotic model, Economy, Mathematics, Transition

References

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