MATHEMATICS TEACHING ACROSS MULTICULTURAL CONTEXT

By: Syahlan Romadon (09301241041)
Mathematics Education, Yogyakarta State University
(http://syahland.blogspot.com)

A. INTRODUCTION
Difference pond, difference fish. In many country there are difference cultural the mathematics teaching. The Indonesian culture will be different with other countries. It is creating so many differences among countries. as did learning of mathematics. It’s important to know the various mathematics teaching learning process in the various countries. In this paper we will show the mathematical teaching in various context in various countries, so we can adopt the best one to applied in mathematical teaching-learning process.
In this paper will be share about the resume the paper that has presented in Apec-Ubon Ratchathani International Symposium 2011. And it specially appear mathematics teaching across multicultural context in four country, they are Vietnam, Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia, and Philippina.

B. DISCUSSION
a. Vietnamese Context
Mathematics teaching in Vietnam, the use of dynamic external representations in communicating, learning and teaching mathematics has increased dramatically. The use of dynamic external representations promotes students’ understanding of school mathematical concepts.
They tries to lessen the training of basic skills and procedures in mathematics but increases more hands-on activities to help students grasp the mathematics ideas and develop mathematical thinking. To answer these questions some procedures, rules and techniques are required. The content of mathematics, thinking skills and marks allocated to each question are distributed as in the following table.
(Tran Vui)

b. Bruneian Context
In order to abide to the suggestions and guidelines from the Curriculum Development Department (CDD), teachers in Brunei are encouraged to refer to the following when planning a lesson (Khalid,2011), where pupils are expected to:
• communicate in order to learn and express their understanding
• connect mathematical ideas to other concepts in mathematics, to everyday experiences and to other disciplines
• demonstrate fluency with mental mathematics and estimation
• develop and apply new mathematical knowledge through problem solving
• develop mathematical reasoning and creativity.
• select and use technologies as tools for learning and solve problems
• develop visualization skills to assist in the processing of information, making connections and solving problems.
• develop positive attitudes and values towards mathematics.
In order to create something interesting and fun as the lesson starter, the teacher plays the musical chair game with the pupils. The purpose of the introduction is to define the word ‘compare’ and ‘size’. Before the game started, pupils were asked to guess who will win the game and why. The lesson can be considered a success if we consider pupils’ participation in class. The children were active, participative and looked interested in the lesson.
(Madihah Khalid)

c. Indonesian Context
Mathematics education in Indonesia have the indication that children's achievement in the subjects of mathematics and science is low, as indicated by the result of the National Leaving Examination year by year both in Primary and Secondary School. This fact may be as the results of:
1. The shortage of laboratory activities
2. Lack of teachers having mastered science process skill approach
3. Contents on Mathematics and Science curriculum too crowded
4. Too many time consuming administration stipulation for teachers
5. Lack of laboratory equipment and laboratory human resource.
The efforts of developing textbook for Vocational Senior High School mathematics should always put the concern of the criteria of good textbook. Specifically, for the needs to develop textbook for junior mathematics we need to have a clear picture on how to plan and implement activities in the classroom the following: problem solving activities, reasoning and proof, mathematical communication, mathematical connections, mathematical representation, the role of technology, content arrangement and skills development, content appropriate and relevant, wide range of student interests and abilities, and materials easy to follow and 14 understand.
The problem solving based mathematics textbook in the Vocational Senior High School can be developed based on the criteria outlined by Polya and Pasmep that are:
1. Trial and Error
2. Making diagram
3. Trying the simple problem
4. Making Table
5. Finding the pattern
6. Breaking down the goal
7. Considering the possibilities
8. Thinking Logically
9. Reversing the Order
10. Identifying the impossibility.
(Marsigit and R. Rosnawati)

d. Philippines Context
In Philippines context, the long term goal which the teachers formulated for their learning proccess was to develop student’s mathematical thinking through problem solving. Their sub-goals were for students to represent real-life and mathematical situations, to give meaning to these representations, and to solve problems in different ways.
For example to provide a context for developing the concept of polynomial function, it would be good for textbooks to use problems that would require students to think. The textbook must provided a good example of the application of polynomial function in real life to which students could relate. The problem would require the students to think and devise their own method to solve it. After some preliminary meetings, the teachers were finally able to conceptualize a problem that had a real-life context.
Through lesson study, the problem was developed collaboratively, tried in actual classrooms, and improved based on actual implementation results. It could be argued that the students used more thinking skills when they solved the problem than when they would have been simply asked to follow a set of procedures to learn polynomial function.
(Soledad A. Ulep)

C. CONCLUTION
Every country in the world have difference culture. And every culture have difference problem and also difference solve this problem. Problems concerning the learning process that occurs in every country are not the same, so as to resolve the issue who are members of APEC strive together to find solutions to develop the learning process in a way that each would strive to improve teaching and learning process with the process student-centered lessons. Viewed different ways of teaching mathematics based multicultural context can open our knowledge so that we can adopt the way of good teaching, which is adapted to our culture.