PROSPECTIVE DIRECTIONS FOR IMPROVING THE QUALITY OF SCHOOL MATHEMATICS EDUCATION

Abstract

The factual material about significant weaknesses in the current state of school mathematics education in Ukraine, Bulgaria, Belarus, Latvia, Poland and Hungary is presented. These weaknesses include a decrease in the level of educational achievements of students, loss of desire to study mathematics, decline in the prestige of mathematical education and mathematical professions in public consciousness, etc. It was found that the attention of Ukrainian scholars to the problems of preventing and eliminating the failure of students, veiled by the use of the term “initial level of educational achievements”. The incompatibility of the abnormal overload of educational programs and textbooks with the principle of accessibility of learning and the consequences of this anomaly are revealed. Among them is the loss of students’ desire to study, failure of learning, replacement of the conscious learning of educational material by memorizing it, and a dangerously high level of incidence of illness in students. The unique experience of mathematics teachers of past (P. Dolhushyn, P. Larychev, H. Husarska) and current (S. Lohachevska, O. Plysiuk) generations regarding the practical implementation of standardized education freed from overloading students was analysed. The high educational and developmental effectiveness of the internal (in the same class) differentiation of students with high, medium and low levels of educational achievements, and its conditioning by in-depth learning of the educational material with the aim of adaptation to any level of educational achievements of students has been established. It is concluded that the introduction of internal differentiation of learning into mass school practice enables the implementation of prospective directions for improving the quality of mathematics education. They are the freeing students from academic overload, eliminating gaps in knowledge and skills, mastering the skills and abilities of independent work, developing thinking and interest in studying mathematics, and increasing the level of educational achievements.