engleski

The development of the number sense through the comparison of the national, Montessori and Waldorf curriculum for the primary mathematics education in Croatia

Recommendation from the Council of Europe on the key competences for lifelong learning features mathematical competence that builds “on a sound mastery of numeracy” and includes “sound knowledge of numbers”. Numbers are an important part of primary mathematics education and they permeate many aspects of professional and social life. The notion number sense motivated studies with a different focus and approach. Educators examined how number sense correlated with achievement and abilities in mathematics and investigated and designed activities to develop students’ number sense. Number sense concerns “understandings, skills and attitudes about number” that are beyond being numerate in the everyday workaround mathematics. The achievement of the Croatian pupils in the international surveys and national exams and the prospective primary school teachers’ answers in a test developed by the author indicate low-level abilities in the working with numbers. Having experience with the alternative education, Montessori and Waldorf, we questioned how the corresponding curriculums promote the development of the number sense in the context of the primary mathematics education in Croatia. We created a tool for curriculum analysis that inc luded ten common components of the numbers sense from the literature. Our results showed that the Croatian curriculum failed by comparison in the number sense components related to the size of numbers, patterns and attitudes, and the outcomes which pertain to the components related to the relationship, representation, calculation and application, are rigid, limited and routine. We believe that educating prospective and practising teachers about alternative approaches to mathematics education might promote teaching and learning to develop the number sense.

curriculum analysis ; primary school mathematics ; Montessori education ; Waldorf education

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