Three -Day National Conference on Mathematics Education – An Initiative of NCERT

On the occasion of the birth anniversary of the great mathematician Shri Srinivas Ramanujam, the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) is going to organize the 7^th National Conference on Mathematics Education from 20th to 22nd December in the present year. This is indeed a great initiative of NCERT.

This step will pave way for finding implications of the history of mathematics, especially understanding in detail about the contributions of great men and recent developments such as pedagogical practices used to enhance the teaching learning process of mathematics. The emphasis of this conference shall be on the pedagogical practices and their application and use at different levels for the teaching of mathematics. During this conference, the National Mathematics Day shall also be celebrated on the birthday of Shri Srinivas Ramanujam in order to pay tribute to him for his remarkable contribution in the field of mathematics. Ramanujam was born on December 22, 1887.  He lived during the British Rule in India. He had almost no formal training in the field of mathematics yet his contributions were absolutely remarkable. He excellently compiled around 3,900 results (mostly identities and equations). Many of which were completely novel; his original and highly unconventional results, such as the Ramanujan prime, the Ramanujan theta function, partition formulae and mock theta functions, have increased the scope for new areas of work and have inspired a vast amount of further research as well. He became one of the youngest Fellows of the Royal Society and only the second Indian member, and the first Indian to be elected as a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. He deeply believed that his substantial mathematical capacities are because of God’s grace. He stated that the mathematical knowledge he depicted was revealed to him by his family goddess. "An equation for me has no meaning," he once stated, "unless it expresses a thought of God. The concept note of the conference stated that the main aim of imparting education is (i) to make an individual employable; (ii) to imbibe critical analysis and thinking abilities. There are seven different themes that have been selected for the seminar. These are as follows: connecting past and present in mathematics education; assessment in mathematics education; innovative practices in mathematics education; mathematics learning- issues and concerns; social and psychological barriers in mathematics learning and interventions;  mathematics in school curriculum;  popularization of mathematics education; role of mathematical societies and organizations; and recent development in mathematics education.

By: Anuja Arora

Content: http://www.merinews.com/article/ncert-to-organise-three-day-national-conference-on-mathematics-education/15932105.shtml