R. Magsar’s research while affiliated with Mongolian National University of Education and other places

In elementary school mathematics, the application of many methods is less common in high school practice. Therefore, in this study, we studied the opinion of students who will become teachers in primary school mathematics about the application of many methods in mathematics. Before and after the elective course, students are asked questions to determine the advantages and disadvantages of using several methods and interviewed, analyzed the results and made conclusions.

This research is based on the theory that mathematical connections are established by solving problems in different ways in the study and teaching of mathematics. Based on one-on-one interviews with 12 secondary school teachers in Mongolia and two group meetings, we showed that the difference between theoretical advice and school practice in a multitasking environment depends on the basic quality of the teachers’ knowledge. A complex relationship has been revealed between different types of teachers’ knowledge.

Our research is based on the idea that problem solving is a core activity in the study and teaching of mathematics. The traditional curriculum recommended solving problems in one way with one answer. However, at the present time, they began to talk about the need to learn the skills of solving problems in many ways with many answers and to choose the most rational one. Therefore, as part of the Creative Thinking course, we organized the independent activities of student teachers who think in different ways, and conducted research on the development of their problem solving skills over several semesters of the academic year. As a result, they found their own ways to independently solve problems, and as a result of the interchange of ways to solve problems between students and teachers, they were able to complete 26 variants of the same problem. By this we tried to emphasize the importance of solving problems using different methods.

In this article, we tried to show the results of mastering by students of a pedagogical school Mongolian State Pedagogical University with the skills of solving word problems in different ways and methodological knowledge of teaching. Since 2012, students of the pedagogical school have been taking the elective «Mathematical Science». In the previous school, students did not solve math word problems in different ways, and therefore they faced difficulties and interesting cases, but after each training there were positive results.