The Impact Of Mathematical Writing On Mathematical Problem Solving Skills And Metacognition Among The First Year University Students

This study focuses on mathematical writing as a mode of developing mathematical problem solving skills and metacognition among thirty Foundation in Engineering students. These students participated in a series of mathematical writing sessions to solve 15 mathematical problems for five weeks. Qualitative and quantitative data were collected including the students‘ written responses in mathematical writing workbook, their performance in a problem solving assessment, their self-report about metacognition progression as well as their perceptions about mathematical writing. An exploratory case study analysis was applied to examine these data. This study was based on a purposive sample of thirty Foundation in Engineering students as the subject of the case. The findings showed that students’ effort in mathematical writing impacted the problem solving actions taken at each problem solving phase

The Impact of Mathematical Writing on Students’ Metacognition in Applied Algebra Test

Students always use their pens and papers from time to time in their daily routine mathematics lesson to perform activities such as taking notes, performing calculation, doing mathematics assignments or examinations. However, students mainly use writing as a mechanism to demonstrate their computational skills rather than their conceptual thinking. Mathematical writing becomes a powerful learning tool only if it combines language and mathematical algorithm. Thus, this paper intends to explore the impact of mathematical writing on students’ metacognition in an applied algebra test. It attempts to examine the metacognitive behavior of three foundation students in engineering and the qualitative data was the participants’ take-home test after five weeks of mathematical writing intervention. This paper reports the analysis of these students’ writing responses in the test. The findings revealed the quality of the students’ metacognition abilities and their mathematical problem solving skills

Use Mathematical Writing as a Practical Approach to Increase Students’ Problem Solving Skills: A Case Study

In mathematical problem solving, students’ written work mostly reveals their mathematical algorithm skills and has very little information about their reasoning skills of the problem solving process. This study extends the features of mathematical writing that integrate the language and mathematical thinking to increase students’ mathematical problem solving skills. The main feature of this study is the use of mathematics writing workbook as a practical approach to guide the students in the problem solving process. Thirty Foundation students in Engineering participated in a six weeks of writing to solve mathematical problems. An exploratory case study analysis was used to examine the written contents of the participants’ mathematical writing workbook, the performance of their formal test as well as their perceptions of mathematical writing. The trace of work in the workbooks showed that mathematical writing has somehow given some impact on these students to visualize, aware and recognize their problem solving behaviors in words