A survey of the practice of a large-scale implementation of inquiry-based mathematics teaching: from Taiwan’s perspective

Abstract

This is a brief commentary from the perspective of Taiwan. We first introduce the background of Taiwan’s involvement in the global educational reform related to inquiry-based learning in mathematics and science. In the main part, we share some important ideas based on our experiences of conducting nationwide teacher professional development projects in Taiwan, followed by some discussion and suggestions. The commentary concludes with some remarks. Inquiry-based learning (IBL) has been a popular issue in the trend of science and mathematics education reform for decades all over the world. More than 20 years ago, the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) indicated that inquiry is one of the most important contexts for students’ learning of mathematical concepts and knowledge, to include exploring, conjecturing, reasoning logically and evaluating whether something makes sense or not (NCTM 1991). As an active member of the global village, Taiwan, of course, is part of this global trend of educational reform. Even though our student performances in international assessments, such as TIMSS and PISA, are always among the leading group of the world (Mullis et al. 2008, 2012; Organization for Economic and Co-operation Development (OECD), 2005), students’ low learning motivation and lack of inquiry habits of mind have been noted by both researchers and the government (Lin and Liu 2011). As a result, many research projects about science and mathematics inquiry have been conducted by researchers within the last 20 years. The National Science Council also implemented a nationwide ‘‘High Scope Project’’ (NSC 2006) 7 years ago for promoting senior and vocational high school students’ science and mathematics inquiry competences. Further, many individuals, institutions and governmental organizations have supported professional developments for teachers in various aspects of IBL for more than a decade [e.g., teacher professional development for IBL teaching has been one of the themes of the calls for projects from NSC for 10 years; see http:// www.nsc.gov.tw/sci/lp.asp?CtNode=1618&CtUnit=1221& BaseDSD=7 (in Chinese)]. In this issue of ZDM, nine papers are included focusing on inquiry-based mathematics education (IBME) and its implementation. It is our pleasure to share some opinions based on the experiences of educational reform in Taiwan.