Abstract
This paper discusses authenticity from the perspective of mathematics education. Often, school mathematics offers students inauthentic word problems, which don’t show the authentic usefulness of mathematics in real life. In some tasks, authentic aspects are combined with inauthentic ones (e.g., an authentic context, but the question is artificial and different from what people within that context would ask). Several studies show that students are more motivated by authentic questions than by authentic contexts. Embedding these findings, I discuss issues associated with defining authenticity in education. A first issue is that philosophers use the term to characterize a person’s existential expressions (e.g., being true to oneself), whereas in education, we use the term for learning environments, artefacts, etc. Second, some researchers define authentic learning environments according to criteria (being open to different approaches, simulate a real-life activity, etc.), but I will illustrate that inauthentic activities can comply with such criteria as well. Alternatively, I suggest using the term for separate aspects in a learning environment (contexts, questions, etc.), and define authenticity as a social construct rather than as a subjective perception. In this way, a community (teachers, students, out-of-school experts) can reach agreement on the nature of this characteristic. For an aspect to be authentic, it needs to have: (1) an out-of-school origin and (2) a certification of originality (e.g., by bringing artifacts physically into a classroom or by testimony of an expert). This approach is illustrated by a study on students’ project work during an excursion to a mathematics research workplace.
Highlights
Authenticity as a Noun to Critique Word Problems in Mathematics EducationThis paper in the Special Issue on Authentic Learning edited by Jurgen Schulte comes from an outsider
My research pertains to a theory-heavy discipline, in which learning is traditionally organized in teacher-structured environments: mathematics
Authenticity becomes a social construct in order for a community to agree on the label of being authentic, and making this judgement independent of an individual’s subjective perception
Summary
A first issue that blurs the definition of authenticity in education is that philosophers (e.g., Martin Heidegger, Søren Kierkegaard) and psychologists (e.g., Donald Winnicott, Susie Orbach) have used the term to characterize a person’s existential feelings or expressions. The purpose, the information/data (are the data corresponding to real life data?), the presentation of the andstrategies, other researchers make lists, which they define it is task, So, the these solution the circumstances of from the students’. Could there exist some half-baked home, I will use an example from vocational education and not from mathematics education There is another issue in defining complete tasks holistically as authentic. To hammer theIn point training of airplane pilots, flight simulators are crucial tools These are containers standing home, I will use an example from vocational education and not from mathematics education. What flight simulators clearly distinguish from real planes is that a candidate has no responsibility over lives or material In such a learning environment, an essential aspect has been cut out for educational purposes: the responsibility over material and lives. Authenticinformation information sheet [25].[25]
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