SCHOOL OR COLLEGE MATHEMATICS AND WORKPLACE PRACTICE: AN ACTIVITY THEORY PERSPECTIVE

This paper reports on a case study in which we detail how a college mathematics and chemistry student struggles to make sense of the graphical output of an experiment in an industrial chemistry laboratory. The student's attempts to interpret unfamiliar graphical conventions are described and contrasted with those of college mathematics. Our analysis of this draws on activity theory to assist in understanding the position of the student in both the college and the workplace. This highlights the limitations of the experience of the student at college and we question how the mathematics curriculum might be adapted to assist students in making sense of workplace graphical output.

[1]  Stieg Mellin-Olsen.  The politics of mathematics education , 1987 .

[2]  A. Collins,et al.  Situated Cognition and the Culture of Learning , 1989 .

[3]  Geoffrey B. Saxe,et al.  Culture and cognitive development , 1990 .

[4]  Yrjö Engeström,et al.  Non scolae sed vitae discimus: Toward overcoming the encapsulation of school learning , 1991 .

[5]  J. Wertsch.  Voices of the Mind: A Sociocultural Approach to Mediated Action , 1992 .

[6]  Etienne Wenger,et al.  Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation , 1991 .

[7]  P. I. Gal'perin.  The Problem of Activity in Soviet Psychology , 1992 .

[8]  David W. Carraher,et al.  Street mathematics and school mathematics , 1993 .

[9]  Ritva Engeström,et al.  Voice as communicative action , 1995 .

[10]  H. Simon,et al.  Situated Learning and Education1 , 1996 .

[11]  M. Fischer,et al.  Arbeitsprozeßwissen im chemischen Labor , 1997 .

[12]  G. Wake.  Improving Mathematics Provision for Post-16 Students , 1997 .

[13]  A. Sfard.  On Two Metaphors for Learning and the Dangers of Choosing Just One , 1998 .

[14]  Bert van Oers,et al.  From context to contextualizing , 1998 .

[15]  Foster,et al.  Medical students’ errors in pharmacotherapeutics , 2000, Medical education.

[16]  Julian Williams,et al.  General Mathematical Competence: A New Way of Describing and Assessing a Mathematics Curriculum , 2002 .

[17]  Uwe Wilkesmann,et al.  In: Arbeit - Zeitschrift für Arbeitsforschung, Arbeitsgestaltung und Arbeitspolitik, , 2003 .

[18]  Carl Bereiter,et al.  Situated Cognition and How to Overcome It , 2021, Situated Cognition.