DidMat Seminars with Signe Gottschau Malm

Title

Counterintuitive Problems in Primary School Probability 

Speaker

Signe Gottschau Malm, PhD student, Department of Science Education, UCPH

Abstract

How can counterintuitive probability problems support pupils’ development of probabilistic reasoning?

This talk presents an ongoing PhD project investigating how counterintuitive probability problems can be used to challenge pupils’ epistemological obstacles and create opportunities for mathematical reasoning and justification.

Drawing on classroom experiments developed through lesson study in Danish Grade 6 classrooms, the talk introduces a didactic approach inspired by Japanese teaching through problem solving.

Through a case study of the well-known *two-child problem*, the talk illustrates how the Anthropological Theory of the Didactic (ATD) and a reference epistemological model (REM) can be used to analyse pupils’ techniques and the technological discourse underlying their probabilistic reasoning.

Critical Friend:Professor Morten Misfeldt, Department of Science Education, UCPH