Ethnomathematics:Case Development And Instructional Design

With the further deepening of the reform of international mathematics education,the cultural relevance of mathematics and mathematics education has aroused wide attention from scholars both at home and abroad.The study of mathematics education has also paid more attention to the impact of social culture on curriculum and teaching,as well as students’ values.Because of the special attention to the social culture,ethnomathematics has been paid more attention by many experts,such as anthropologists,mathematicians and mathematics educators.And they had a warm discussion of "what is ethnomathematics""why teach ethnomathematics" and "how to teach ethnomathematics".So drawing on the existing research results abroad,the author combed and summarized the basic ways of the development and utilization of ethnomathematics materials,and explored how to integrate ethnomathematics.These questions are the most urgent task of the current ethnomathematics research as well.Based on the mathematics textbook of junior middle school,which published by Zhejiang Education Publishing House in 2012,the author selected the contents of"graphics and geometry" as the object of study,and chose the students and teachers of Donghu Middle School in Pinghu City of Zhejiang Province as the experimental objects.Then the author carried out the material development and teaching design of ethnomathematics.In the aspect of material development,the author excavated the cases from ethnic culture,national culture.traditional culture and daily life etc.in the way of literature and field research,and extracted the way of case development and utilization by the empirical method.Specifically,the author introduced "graphics nature" and "graphics changes" in detial.On the one hand,according to the knowledge of the module and the theme,the author made the classification of materials,such as graphics nature includ mosaic,circle and Pythagorean theorem;graphic changes include Axis symmetry and similarity.On the other hand,according to the level of students’ cognitive and learning content,the difficulty level of the material is divided,including the level of cultural experience,the level ofmathematical understanding and the level of knowledge development.In the aspect of instructional design,the author selected the content of wonderful plane pattern mosaic to conduct an experiment and inteview.Through classroom observation and interviews with teachers and students,it was found that the integration of ethnomathematics in the classroom significantly improved the students’ participation in the classroom and stimulated the students’ enthusiasm for learning mathematics;the material of different forms,contents and cultural background enriched the students’ understanding of mathematics knowledge and history of mathematics,etc.,and deepened the students’understanding of cultural and mathematical cultural connotation;increased the oppertunities of emotional experience and hands-on themselves.Finally,the author put forward some suggestions on the study of ethnomathematics:earnestly grasp the value of ethnomathematics educational;scientificly develop and utilize the ethnomathematical material;fully consider the way of ethnomathematics into school mathematics.