Abstract

            The purpose of this paper is to identify the metacognitive strategies for the enhancement of mathematical problem solving. This paper portrays the results by historical method. The primary purpose of the enhancement of mathematical problem solving instruction is not to equip students with a collection of skills and processes, but rather to enable them to think for themselves. The value of skills and processes instruction should be judged by the extent to which the skills and processes actually enhance flexible, independent thinking. Students’ abilities to think flexibly can be developed and enhanced by teachers modeling their own thinking processes, giving students opportunities to solve the problem, and helping students become aware of their own thought processes as they solve mathematical problems. This process of analyzing our own thought processes is called metacognition and includes thinking about how we are approaching a problem, the strategies we choose to use to find a solution, and the questions we ask ourselves about the problem are all part of metacognition.

A10 METACOGNITIVE STRATEGIES FOR THE ENHANCEMENT OF   MATHEMATICAL PROBLEM-SOLVING pdf