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Angela Schwenk
Beuth Hochschule für Technik Berlin Fachbereich II Mathematik - Physik – Chemie, Germany
For a long time we reported decreasing mathematical abilities of university freshmen. This is documented amongst others by a long term study at Beuth University over 20 years. The latest results in 2015 are dramatic. Written exams show frequently terrible elementary mistakes we rarely have seen before. At the SEFI Conference at Dublin 2014 we presented examples of these mistakes together with the statistics of its occurrence. Looking for the reasons of these mistakes we considered the role and the side effects of technology in mathematics teaching.
There are still other reasons. In Germany the PISA shock initiated a change of objectives of mathematics education at school. Hence the so-called competence orientated teaching has been implemented. Considering the consequence we analyze the type of mathematical problems of final secondary-school examinations, and demonstrate that it is possible to pass the exam without mathematics.
We can observe the consequences of the mathematics education at school in freshmen at university. As expected, we find a lack in basic skills and a lack in applying rules. In addition we realize that the students changed their approach of problem solving by avoiding formal mathematics, using instead intuitive and creative ad-hoc solutions. This may be sufficient with simple problems but is not transferable to more complex problems. We observe that there is a lack of a systematic approach. We confirm these statements by examples from written exams we got from engineering colleagues.
Prof. Dr.