One of Liping-Ma’s fundamental principles, Connectedness, is the opportunity to provide a linked and relative basis for learning mathematics, creating cross curricular learning in the classroom, benefitting a child’s progression and teachers ability to provide a sustained and relative learning experience.

“a general intention to make connections among mathematical concepts and procedures, from simple and superficial connections between individual pieces of knowledge to complicated underlying connections among different mathematical operations and subdomains” (Ma, 2010).

Creating these links provide children with the ability to “model real-life situations and make connections and informed predictions” as stated in the Principles and Practice document provided by the Scottish Government. This supports the belief of Ma that this intention should prevent students’ learning from being fragmented and instead of learning isolated topics, the knowledge will be unified. (Ma, 2010)

“Learning mathematics develops logical reasoning, analysis, problem-solving skills, creativity and the ability to think in abstract ways” (Scottish Government, 2009). Further to this the basic principles of CfE support Liping Ma’s concepts, the curriculum should be taught with breadth and progression in mind, in relation to Mathematics, science, medicine, technology and finance are, to name but a few, tightly related subjects which require the “basic” understanding of fundamental mathematical concepts in order to progress into such areas.

“To face the challenges of the 21st century, each young person needs to have confidence in using mathematical skills, and Scotland needs both specialist mathematicians and a highly numerate population.” Building the Curriculum 1

There is increasingly high demand for a high level of mathematical education in the UK, and to target this STEM was introduced and has become a high focus for the government to address a high demand in these areas. Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics are the areas identified. Relating this to my local area, Dundee and the place where I would hope to teach in the future I wanted to explore what opportunities there were available and how I would address my learners needs.

Science – Dundee Science Centre provides a great experience for children to involve themselves in an interactive, educational setting and also evolves to a deeper understanding that children can link their own experiences to. In settings like this, children are learning without realizing and this can be extremely successful, highlighting enjoyment and choice of learners.

Technology – Abertay University is regarded highly regarded in the Gaming industry and has homed some of the worlds most respected producers of games. Coding is an area which can be developed with children and I have experienced teaching this area. Using such a resource will mean that professionals can discuss with the children opportunities for development in technology and gaming.

Engineering – At first I found it difficult to think of an engineering learning opportunity in Dundee, however I then considered construction. The V&A museum is a great example to introduce a whole school to construction and architecture. As it is in the process of being built children can follow the progress over a period of time and explore the stages of development such a building requires.

Mathematics – A much wider topic which can be related to all of the above. I decided to think about cross curricular links that can be developed in the classroom alone. With so many opportunities I will explore this in a later blog post.

These opportunities provide learners with hands on experience, which they have a connection with. Connectedness is obtained by creating links and opportunities for learners to create their own understanding of basic ideas which will progress as learning manifests into other areas of the curriculum.