Does Explanation is still required for Mathematics Course in 21st Century?

According to Oxford Dictionary, explanation is statement or account that makes something clear. An explanation is also set of statements constructed that describe and clarifies the causes, context, and consequences of some facts. This description may establish rules or law, and may clarify the existing ones in relation to any object, or phenomena. The components of an explanation can be implicit, interpretation, and discussion. Explanation applied in almost all fields, such as mathematics, engineering, geography, and social -which is have different purpose depends on the field. In mathematics, explanation used to describe, clarivy, or proof of a formula. Those explanation called mathematical explanation. Mathematical explanation is pondered explanation in the natural science (Steiner, Mark; 2010). Mathematical explanation often encountered in mathematics course in school.

Based on the experience of the author, mathematics course in school would not regardless of mathematical explanation. In every meeting, teacher always explain all of the material and the duty of students is listen it, whether is true or false. An abstract and indescribable content of mathematics delivered with lecturing, then students have to accept and force to understand the material by teacher doing. This phenomenon has spread throughout the country and become a habit. This habit continually turning into a strong unwritten rule and created a mainstream of how mathematics course should be in school, but actually the case is should be different. This mainstream also invents another phenomenon that damages the core meaning of mathematics itself.

Many students dislike classes in mathematics. They give a wide variety of reason for this and among the most mentioned are mathematics is hard, mathematics is boring, and mostly irrelevant with daily life. Part of these problems stems from misconception about mathematics, because student got mathematics concept from teacher, not from their own understanding. When teacher lecture every single thing in mathematics content, it’s not possible that the mindset of students would be like that. Students believe that the only one resource of mathematical knowledge is from teacher. There’s no other resources can solve any mathematics problem as excellent as the teacher. There will always be a mistake in different ways from what teacher explains earlier. Student also has less confidence in the mathematics class. Students rely on teacher in each mathematical case, even they can do by own. This mindset makes students afraid to explore mathematics from their perspective. Because of that, many students never realize the relation of mathematics and their daily life and its application. That’s why students lean to remember the material, neither understand the concept of mathematics. Masculinity is so contrary to what should be happening in the education field, particularly in mathematics course in this century -21^st centuries. The characteristics of 21^st century education are in contrast with the habit of our country.

Tweenty Fist century, means many things change and need more improvement, especially in education field. According to Suzie Boss (2013), it’s not longer enough to mastery of academic content, students also need to develop the “process skills” that will help them navigate their rapidly changing world. The most important skills in 21^st century are 4C’s (Critical Thinking, Collaboration, Creativity, and Communication).  Teaching with lecturing methods that applied in mathematics course in most of our country considered couldn’t respond those challenges. To meet 21st century demands, more and more teacher is looking for new innovation of instructional approach such as teaching method. According to Raka Joni (1990), teacher should shift from conventional method (lecturing method) toward modern method (students centered learning).

 In the paradigm of students centered learning, students are required to have active involvement in learning (the focus of learning is on students). Knowledge is no longer transferred by the teacher as the lecturer to the students. It means students build the concept of understanding in their own ways and teacher is as a facilitator in this context. Concept is very important in mathematics context. By knowing the concept well, students can solve various problem in easy and excellent ways (Nisbah, Faizal; 2013). A problem is solve when students know the rules or steps how to fix that problem, and those rule are come from student’s understanding. This concept constructed by the student themselves in collaborative and cooperative in groups that support each other. Teacher gives the students some activities that can lead student to the concept or the answer, for instance hand on activity, open question, discussion, or debate. Teachers also provide some resources for students. Students are not a passive recipient of information any more. In the end, students reflect their activities that require them to deliver something in set of understanding words and sometimes teacher clarifies students’ understanding by explanation. Students never more to memorize the material, but rather they try to find, dig, and understand the existing material in mathematics. Indirectly, those activities whet students skill in collaborative, communication, and critical thinking.

Mathematics course also increase student’s creativity, because creativity is an integral part of mathematics (Brunkalla, Kai; 2009). Mathematics entred creativity in many different ways, in example abstraction, connection, and research. When student solve mathematics problem, they create the model that reflect the real world, then solve it with mathematics tools known. Furthermore, student realize that known material tools can be applied to new problem, they allow problem to be view in new ways. In solving a mathematical problem also, student need other knowledge to support the best solution. By doing this activities student discover of new mathematical ways to solve the problem, and teacher duty are monitor student’s impovement and motivate them that every students can solve the problem. This activities is not only increase creativity of students, but also self esteem and confidencity of students.

In conclusion, explanation in mathematics course is not required in the 21st century, but not really come to dominate. We can back to the principle of explanation, explanation uses clarify and confirm something to be clear, but if the things are clear enough, why we must explain it again. In 21st century, good mathematics teacher guide students to build their own understanding, give students’ opportunity to explore, discuss, and solve a mathematics problem with their own best ways. Mathematics is full of fantasy and elaboration, let students feel it. If teacher always doctrine students, not only make students not enjoy learning mathematics, but also not equip students with require capability to survive in this era. It’s not denied that explanation is important in almost all fields, but it doesn’t mean explanation is everything.

Resources:

Boss, Suzie. 2013. PjBL for 21st Century Succes: Teaching Critical Thinking, Collaboration, Communication, and Creativity. California: Buck Institute for Education.

Nisbah, Faizal. 2013. Pentingnya Pemahaman Konsep dalam Matematika Realisik. Retrieved November 1, 2013, from http://faizalnizbah.blogspot.com/2013/10/pentingnya-pemahaman-konsep-matematika.html

Zeiger, Stacy. 2000. Five Important Characteristics to Become a Good Mathematics Teacher. New York: Demand Media.

Brunkalla, Kai. (2009). The Montana Mathematics Enthusiast, Vol. 6, nos.1&2, pp.257- 266. How To Increase Mathematical Creativity- An Experiment. California: Montana Council of Teachers of Mathematics & Information Age Publishing.