Development of a Construction-Based Pedagogy for a Graduate Engineering Review Course in School Mathematics

摘要

This thesis proposes a pedagogy and an experimental curriculum and instructional system designed to enhance the ability of engineering students to construct and manipulate mathematical representations of real world phenomena and to create the new knowledge they would need to solve unprecedented engineering problems. Developing such a pedagogy required a theory of learning and a viable model of education. The learning theory employed is Ausubel's, artfully extended by Gowin and Novak through their invention of two heuristics for learning: the Concept Map and Vee. The model of education used is Gowin's description of Schwab's four common places of education. The need for development of this pedagogy and curriculum and instructional system stem from the current rule-based approach to the teaching and learning of mathematics that promotes rote memorization fo rules and techniques rather than a conceptual orientation to mathematics. Because of the need for students to understand and employ mathematical concepts and use those concepts to create mathematical representations of the real world, a construction-based curriculum was developed. (jhd)