Research On The Olympic Math Course In Normal Colleges

It has been over a hundred years since the first organized competition on maths in the world, the Hungarian Maths Competition in 1894. With a history of more than forty years, there have been 45 International Maths Olympics. At the present time, those countries with a comparatively high level in middle school maths education have held various maths competitions and also attended the International Maths Olympics. In China, most normal universities and colleges have made Olympic maths an optional subject under the program of maths education. The colorful activities in Olympic maths have made the research in such fields possible and plausible. Taking the Olympic maths course in normal colleges as the target not only can deepen and expand the scope of theoretical research on Olympic maths with a profound significance, it also matches the demand for curriculum development and reform in educational maths in normal colleges at home. Olympic maths has played an active role in discovering and cultivating young talents in maths, enhancing the interest and ability in learning maths and improving the students' reasoning. However, rational thinking in education made the study and teaching of Olympic maths move onto the narrow road which is empirical and rational. The scientific psychological empirical methodology and value system made Olympic maths course a kind of mechanic logic knowledge system. From educational point of view, this pure cognitive training in maths overlooks such aspects as emotion, will and spirit and hinders the development in an all-round manner. In order to develop students' creativity, it is vital that we go beyond the traditional opinion of pure cognition-orientedness and explore into the cultural resources in maths. We should also combine mathematic exploration, creativity and human spirit for a better integration and self-surpassing. Through such creation activities in mathematic fields, the students' motivation in exploring and self-surpassing can be improved, and the awareness in understanding the unknown, challenging the new can also be cultivated. The development and formation of personality can be implemented, thus making the creative activities in maths teaching the practice in excelling human nature. To be frank, Olympic maths is not furnished with complete knowledge system or strict logic structure. It, however, has relatively steady contents indicating the characteristics of being open, interesting, novel, creative and apt for research originating from assigning and solving various kinds of maths issues. Therefore, it is of great vitality to attain those characteristics when assigning issues for maths teaching and competition. For those normal colleges which offer such kind of Olympic maths courses, it is a must that they aim at making the learners thoroughly understand such characteristics and master the destination, features and teaching methods of Olympic maths. Owing to the great variety in question type and solving approaches of Olympic maths, the different theories concerning maths learning bears some special value in inspiring the students for greater creativity. To make Olympic maths teaching a kind of creative teaching, it is essential that we adhere to modern concept for creativity, that is to say, we should take creativity as the combination of the interior "human nature" and external "human force". Accordingly, in the process of teaching, the focus should be placed on improving the students' cognitive creativity and great emphasis be placed on the integration of knowledge, emotion and sense, so as to prepare the students with a suitable environment for all-roudness. From this point of view, the teaching of Olympic maths can be fulfilled in the following 4 steps. They are: creating and designing situation to arouse motivation; exploring and discussing to find problems; following the plan to solve the problems; proof-reading and reflecting to further understand.