Making Mathematics More Practical: Implementation In The Schools

Book excerpt: The book Making Mathematics Practical (published by World Scientific in 2011) proposes a new paradigm in teaching problem solving in secondary school mathematics classrooms. It is a report of the research project “Mathematical Problem Solving for Everyone” (MProSE), which attempts to provide all the necessary resources for teachers to teach problem solving in schools. This book reports as a follow-up on the actual enactment of the proposed MProSE problem solving curriculum in five Singapore schools. The experimental schools, which span across the entire spectrum of all Singapore secondary schools, report how they tweak the MProSE proposal to fit into their school curriculum, together with issues, challenges and success stories in implementing such an innovative curriculum in Singapore schools. It is an ideal handbook for educators who believe in problem solving as the core of mathematics curriculum and who wish to implement such an approach in their schools.