Computations in Mathematics, Mathematical Education, and Science
A special issue of Computation (ISSN 2079-3197).
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 September 2024 | Viewed by 10365
Special Issue Editor
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Just as advances in mathematics often depend on the methods of computation available, the effectiveness of applications of mathematics to education and science depends on our knowledge and understanding of how computers can support advances in areas that use mathematics. The aim of this Special Issue is to collect scholarly reports on the effective use of computations within the wide range of experiences, grade levels, and topics. Of special interest are submissions that demonstrate the duality of mathematical and computational methods in the sense that whereas computations facilitate access to mathematical knowledge, mathematics itself can be used to improve the efficiency of computations, which, in turn, enable advancements in various applications of mathematics to education and science.
At the pre-college level of mathematics education, the Special Issue seeks to identify successful experiences in using computations to communicate the presence of big ideas within seemingly mundane curricular topics and, by the same token, in enabling the study of traditionally difficult and conceptually rich topics through the use of computations. At the college level of mathematics education, the Special Issue invites articles that demonstrate how experimental approaches to mathematics that draw on the power of software to perform numerical and symbolic computations as well as graphical and geometric constructions make it possible to balance informal and formal learning of mathematical ideas. In applications of mathematics to science, this Special Issue invites submissions demonstrating how the availability of symbolic computations enables transition from results based on informal experiments to formal justifications of the results using methods of formal mathematics. Recommended topics to be considered may center on the following questions:
- How does the use of computations affect mathematics research?
- How are computations used in the preparation of PK-12 teachers of mathematics?
- How does the use of computations enable the revision of undergraduate mathematics curricula?
- How does the use of computations facilitate the transition from high school mathematics to university mathematics?
- How does the growth of online degree programs affect the use of digital technology within mathematics courses of such programs?
- How does the use or computations affect research in science?
Articles are expected to include a theoretical discussion of educational, mathematical, and epistemological issues associated with the use of computations in mathematics and their applications to education and science.
Prof. Dr. Sergei Abramovich
Guest Editor
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Computation is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- mathematics
- education
- science
- research
- digital computation
- curriculum development
- online programs
- teacher preparation
Planned Papers
The below list represents only planned manuscripts. Some of these manuscripts have not been received by the Editorial Office yet. Papers submitted to MDPI journals are subject to peer-review.
Title: Shall the last be first? Can using a limited number of arithmetic facts to teach K-3 multi-digit arithmetic computation to students with learning differences lead to success in algebraic, scientific, and statistical computation in high school and college?
Authors: Richard M. Oldrieve
Affiliation: Intervention Specialist at Mansfield St. Peter’s K-12 School, OH, United States
Abstract: As per this special issue’s call for submissions, the research studies presented in this paper move from informal research to formal justifications. The original theory was that K-3 students with slow language processing could be good at complex reasoning, but still struggle with retrieving basic computational facts such as 8+8=16, 16–8=8; 8x2=16; and 16÷2=8. In turn, if they don’t learn their facts, these students would struggle with K-3 multi-digit arithmetic computation, and ultimately struggle with what they should be good at: seeing numeric patterns in algebra, geometry, chemistry, and statistics. Hence, when teaching K-3 students with Specific Learning Disabilities, the author began his informal experimenting by developing a paper and pencil math curriculum that first taught complex multi-digit addition with regrouping using a limited number of facts such as 0’s, 1’s, 5+5, 10’s, and 100’s. When that experiment succeeded, the author incorporated hard to count facts such as 7+7, 7+8, 8+7, and 8+8 in problems such as 177 +188 so that fast and accurate fact retrieval and computation completion would be promoted. Then small sets of patterned facts such as even 2s were incorporated every two weeks. At end of the year, without the aid of calculators, students could solve 42 two-digit by two-digit problems—which included all addition facts—with 92 percent accuracy in an average of 7 minutes. Two decades later, the author joined a team of university math and science professors who were studying the visualization abilities of undergraduates with Bodner and Guay’s (1997) assessment. He then convinced the team to incorporate a measure of Rapid Automatic Naming of Objects designed by Wiig, Semel, and Nystrom (1984) to screen for 8-year-olds struggling with language processing and possibly dysnomia. Results found future 7-12 grade teachers differed significantly by intended certification—with science teachers being high visual and fast processing, math teachers high visual and slow processing, and language arts teachers low visual and slow processing.