George Polya’s book, How to solve it (1945), is likely to have been one of the first books to focus on building students’ skills as problem solvers. Polya, a Hungarian professor of mathematics, realised that it was not sufficient that his students knew their mathematical facts--they also needed to have a relational understanding of the subject in order to use mathematics as a tool. While Polya’s book has provided much food for thought for mathematics educators at all levels throughout the decades, the legacy of his writing is in defining a heuristic or framework for students to solve problems.
Type of Material
Journal Article
Publisher
IMTA
Journal
Irish Mathematics Teachers' Association Newsletter