Abstract
Combinatorics is a branch of mathematics that is very important, but this topic has not received serious attention in educational research compared to other branches of mathematics such as geometry, calculus and algebra in Indonesia. Meanwhile, in secondary and undergraduate education, existing research reports that students’ combinatorial thinking ability tend to be low. Efforts to improve students’ combinatorial thinking ability in one of the Vocational Schools in Medan, Indonesia, are carried out through the development of the Numbered Heads Together (NHT). NHT is one cooperative learning structure. The result showed that NHT learning improved students’ combinatorial thinking ability.
Highlights
At present, trends in mathematics education, mathematics does discuss concepts and numbers, and takes part in everyday life and becomes a tools of solving problems in daily life
Numbered Heads Together (NHT) proposed by Spencer Kagan (1991), in this study, was further developed based on ideas from various experts
The development of the NHT model is realized by the compilation of instructional materials and operationalizing these materials when testing
Summary
Trends in mathematics education, mathematics does discuss concepts and numbers, and takes part in everyday life and becomes a tools of solving problems in daily life. The cooperative learning model gives autonomy to the teacher to interact with students directly or indirectly, so that the teacher can be able to improve students’ combinatorial thinking ability through structured tasks. NHT is a cooperative learning strategy in which teachers (a) assign students to small (4 member), heterogeneous learning groups, (b) ask them to number themselves from 1 to 4, (c) direct questions to the entire class, and (d) tell students to put their heads together, come up with the best answers they can, and make sure that everyone on the team knows the answers (Brandt, 1991; Kagan, 1991). At the end of the lesson, before closing the meeting, the teacher gives homework to be done by students in private as an exercise
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
