Use of problems contexts in Mathematics classrooms

What is it about?

Despite many mathematics curricula around the globe recommending teachers use real-world contexts in teaching, data from PISA show consistently that a high percentage of students do not reach the minimum standard of mathematical literacy that enables them to deal with real-world contexts. In this vein, this chapter offers a definition of the context of a mathematics problem, presents a concise classification of the “level of context use” required to solve a mathematical problem and reports the results of a study that shows that a higher level of context use makes problems more difficult .

Featured Image

Photo by Jeswin Thomas on Unsplash

Photo by Jeswin Thomas on Unsplash

Why is it important?

This book chapter offers insight into why certain kind of mathematical problems embedded in context are difficult to students and discusses issues of problem development that face teachers and others when they wish to assist students to work more effectively with problems in context.