This book is an attempt to change our thinking about thinking. Anna Sfard undertakes this task convinced that many long-standing, seemingly irresolvable quandaries regarding human development originate in ambiguities of the existing discourses on thinking. Standing on the shoulders of Vygotsky and Wittgenstein, the author defines thinking as a form of communication. The disappearance of the time-honoured thinking-communicating dichotomy is epitomised by Sfard's term, commognition, which combines communication with cognition. The commognitive tenet implies that verbal communication with its distinctive property of recursive self-reference may be the primary source of humans' unique ability to accumulate the complexity of their action from one generation to another. The explanatory power of the commognitive framework and the manner in which it contributes to our understanding of human development is illustrated through commognitive analysis of mathematical discourse accompanied by vignettes from mathematics classrooms.
Ordinary language and scientific language enable us to speak about, in a singular way (using demonstratives and names), what we recognize not to exist: fictions, the contents of our hallucinations, abstract objects, and various idealized but nonexistent objects that our scientific theories are often couched in terms of. Indeed, references to such nonexistent items-especially in the case of the application of mathematics to the sciences-are indispensable. We cannot avoid talking about such things. Scientific and ordinary languages thus enable us to say things about Pegasus or about hallucinated objects that are true (or false), such as "Pegasus was believed by the ancient Greeks to be a flying horse," or "That elf I'm now hallucinating over there is wearing blue shoes." Standard contemporary metaphysical views and semantic analyses of singular idioms on offer in contemporary philosophy of language have not successfully accommodated these routine practices of saying true and false things about the nonexistent while simultaneously honoring the insight that such things do not exist in any way at all (and have no properties). That is, philosophers often feel driven to claim that such objects do exist, or they claim that all our talk isn't genuine truth-apt talk, but only pretence. This book reconfigures metaphysics (and the role of metaphysics in semantics) in radical ways that allow the accommodation of our ordinary ways of speaking of what does not exist while retaining the absolutely crucial presupposition that such objects exist in no way at all, have no properties, and so are not the truth-makers for the truths and falsities that are about them.
Train your brain to be quicker, fitter and brighter than it's ever been! This book gives you everything you need to get a mental edge, featuring hundreds of puzzles, quizzes and problem-solving games. It also gives you some great advice on how to maximise your mental agility through diet, exercise and the right lifestyle choices, as well as showing you how to put your new, more powerful brain to the test at work, home and play. NOT GOT MUCH TIME? One, five and ten-minute introductions to key principles to get you started. AUTHOR INSIGHTS Lots of instant help with common problems and quick tips for success, based on the authors' many years of experience. TEST YOURSELF Tests in the book and online to keep track of your progress. EXTEND YOUR KNOWLEDGE Extra online articles at www.teachyourself.com to give you a richer understanding of how to train your brain. FIVE THINGS TO REMEMBER Quick refreshers to help you remember the key facts. TRY THIS Innovative exercises illustrate what you've learnt and how to use it.
This new edition of a popular guide to improving your mental agility will help you improve your performance at work and sharpen your thinking skills in all areas. Based on the latest scientific findings and including up-to-date coverage of how meditative skills such as mindfulness can enhance your brain power, this book gives you everything you need to get a mental edge. It challenges you to think on your feet with hundreds of puzzles, quizzes and problem-solving games, while giving you lifestyle advice on diet, exercise and lifestyle choices. Showing you how to put your new, more powerful brain to the test at work, home and play, this is a smart guide for any smart professional who wants to be brighter, quicker and in the lead at all times.
"This is a must-read book for any teachers of math." -Jo Boaler, Professor of Mathematics Education at Stanford University and author of Mathematical Mindsets Numerical fluency is about understanding Numerical fluency is about understanding, not memorization. It comes over time as students engage in active thinking and doing, not endless worksheets and timed tests. Classroom instruction and materials, however, often don't feel aligned with these realities. In Developing Numerical Fluency, Patsy Kanter and Steven Leinwand take a fresh look at a commonly-asked question: "How do I teach number facts so my students know them fluently?" They apply their decades of experience teaching mathematics to rethinking effective fluency instruction. Classroom-tested ideas you can use right away Each chapter introduces ideas, techniques, and strategies that contribute to meaningful fluency for all students. You'll find: pivotal understandings that illuminate what contributes to real numerical fluency six instructional processes that support lasting fluency development classroom structures and activities for building fluency in addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division suggestions for creating a school-wide culture of numerical fluency. Patsy and Steve remind us that, "Students do not develop numerical fluency by memorizing and regurgitating rules." But many of us learned mathematics in exactly this way, making shifting our instruction challenging. Developing Numerical Fluency provides just the right support, offering big ideas for rethinking instruction paired with classroom-tested activities you can use right away.
The study of mathematical cognition and the ways in which the ideas of space, time and number are encoded in brain circuitry has become a fundamental issue for neuroscience. How such encoding differs across cultures and educational level is of further interest in education and neuropsychology. This rapidly expanding field of research is overdue for an interdisciplinary volume such as this, which deals with the neurological and psychological foundations of human numeric capacity. A uniquely integrative work, this volume provides a much needed compilation of primary source material to researchers from basic neuroscience, psychology, developmental science, neuroimaging, neuropsychology and theoretical biology. - The first comprehensive and authoritative volume dealing with neurological and psychological foundations of mathematical cognition - Uniquely integrative volume at the frontier of a rapidly expanding interdisciplinary field - Features outstanding and truly international scholarship, with chapters written by leading experts in a variety of fields
How do we understand numbers? Do animals and babies have numerical abilities? Why do some people fail to grasp numbers, and how we can improve numerical understanding? Numbers are vital to so many areas of life: in science, economics, sports, education, and many aspects of everyday life from infancy onwards. Numerical cognition is a vibrant area that brings together scientists from different and diverse research areas (e.g., neuropsychology, cognitive psychology, developmental psychology, comparative psychology, anthropology, education, and neuroscience) using different methodological approaches (e.g., behavioral studies of healthy children and adults and of patients; electrophysiology and brain imaging studies in humans; single-cell neurophysiology in non-human primates, habituation studies in human infants and animals, and computer modeling). While the study of numerical cognition had been relatively neglected for a long time, during the last decade there has been an explosion of studies and new findings. This has resulted in an enormous advance in our understanding of the neural and cognitive mechanisms of numerical cognition. In addition, there has recently been increasing interest and concern about pupils' mathematical achievement in many countries, resulting in attempts to use research to guide mathematics instruction in schools, and to develop interventions for children with mathematical difficulties. This handbook brings together the different research areas that make up the field of numerical cognition in one comprehensive and authoritative volume. The chapters provide a broad and extensive review that is written in an accessible form for scholars and students, as well as educationalists, clinicians, and policy makers. The book covers the most important aspects of research on numerical cognition from the areas of development psychology, cognitive psychology, neuropsychology and rehabilitation, learning disabilities, human and animal cognition and neuroscience, computational modeling, education and individual differences, and philosophy. Containing more than 60 chapters by leading specialists in their fields, the Oxford Handbook of Numerical Cognition is a state-of-the-art review of the current literature.
Modern political culture features a deep-seated faith in the power of numbers to find answers, settle disputes, and explain how the world works. Whether evaluating economic trends, measuring the success of institutions, or divining public opinion, we are told that numbers don’t lie. But numbers have not always been so revered. Calculated Values traces how numbers first gained widespread public authority in one nation, Great Britain. Into the seventeenth century, numerical reasoning bore no special weight in political life. Complex calculations were often regarded with suspicion, seen as the narrow province of navigators, bookkeepers, and astrologers, not gentlemen. This changed in the decades following the Glorious Revolution of 1688. Though Britons’ new quantitative enthusiasm coincided with major advances in natural science, financial capitalism, and the power of the British state, it was no automatic consequence of those developments, William Deringer argues. Rather, it was a product of politics—ugly, antagonistic, partisan politics. From parliamentary debates to cheap pamphlets, disputes over taxes, trade, and national debt were increasingly conducted through calculations. Some of the era’s most pivotal political moments, like the 1707 Union of England and Scotland and the 1720 South Sea Bubble, turned upon calculative conflicts. As Britons learned to fight by the numbers, they came to believe, as one calculator wrote in 1727, that “facts and figures are the most stubborn evidences.” Yet the authority of numbers arose not from efforts to find objective truths that transcended politics, but from the turmoil of politics itself.