The Current Situation and Suggestions of “Mathematics Drawing Book” in the Teaching of Lower Grades of Primary School ()
1. Introduction
“Mathematics drawing book” is a topic of general concern in mathematics teaching in primary schools at present, especially in the lower grades. To say “mathematical drawing book” first starts from the “drawing book”. Drawing book, called “picture book” in Britain, as the name implies, counts for “painting book”, and is also called drawing book to map-based, with concise and vivid language and exquisite and beautiful painting closely colluded with the composition of children’s literature works. Wherein, each picture has a rich connotation, and between the picture and the map presents a unique narrative relationship, expressing the overall mood of the drawing book which consequently contains a wealth of knowledge, emotion and philosophy of life. A drawing book has bright colors, distinctive themes, a simple plot, imaginary space, interesting stories, profound connotations and so on. A good drawing book is not only telling a story, but also helps to enhance students’ observation, enrich their imagination, and sublimate their spiritual realm (Matsui, 2017).
The prototype of the drawing can be traced back to the 17th century book “Illustration of the World”, in which the author Kwa menius tries to help children read and learn better through illustrations; In the 19th century, Europe produced a real picture book, and the development of the drawing book began to develop, by the 1930s, the painting book began to flourish in the United States, the1950s and 1960s began to prevail in Japan, Taiwan was influenced by Japan, in the 1960s began to introduce the drawing book, to the 1980s, Taiwan painting book development into a better environment. In mainland China, around 2000, various publishing houses began to pay attention to the drawing book, thus “painting book” in our country began. Since then, children’s literature, art aesthetics, education have begun to study the picture book. “Mathematics drawing book” refers to the storyline contains mathematical concepts or designed for mathematical concepts or mainly with vivid graphics to present interesting mathematical stories, so that students in vivid images of the story to understand the concept of mathematics, master mathematical thinking methods, improve mathematical literacy.
2. A Review of the Relevant Research on “Mathematical Drawings”
2.1. CNKI Visual Analysis Results
In CNKI, the author searched the literature on the theme of “Mathematical Drawing, and retrieved 888 papers on related topics. The annual trends of the publication of the relevant “Mathematical Drawing Book” by CNKI visual analysis are as follows:
As shown in Figure 1, since 2008, the number of articles published about “Mathematical Drawings” has been increasing year by year. The number of publications will continue to rise in 2019 and 2020, indicating that research on “mathematical drawings” has entered a booming phase in recent years. There were 19 papers in the literature reviewed, accounting for 2.1%. Journal papers accounted for 89.9%, i.e. 798 articles, and other articles accounted for 8%.
As shown in Figure 2, the subject distribution is mainly in primary education,
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Figure 1. Years and respective quantity of literature published.
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Figure 2. The distribution of disciplines.
a total of 647, accounting for 68.54%, plus a total of 204 preschool education, accounting for 21.61%. It can be seen that the relevant “mathematical picture books” literature is widely used in primary education, followed by preschool education.
2.2. Cite Space Visual Analysis Results
2.2.1. Represents the Author’s Analysis
Using Cite Space visual analysis software, respectively with keywords, authors, etc. for analysis, selecting CNKI-included literature as a data and manually culling irrelevant and non-academic papers, we finally obtain a valid sum of 699 articles, in the format of Refworks output, imported into Cite Space for visualization.
Select author as the analysis unit in Cite Space and run to get the map (see Figure 3). In the figure above mainly through the author’s node size reflects the frequency, node peripheral annual wheel reflects the centrality of the intermediary, as can be seen from the figure, Chen Yanhong, Luqin, Shen Yang, Lei Wei,
Zhou Zhengxuan, etc. are in the center of the map and form an author’s network with a number of authors, which in the mathematical drawing of this research has a certain influence.
2.2.2. Keywords Are Analyzed Together
From the results of the keyword co-existing (see Figure 4) we can see that mathematics drawing is very extensive, but the most concentrated part of it is related to primary schools and kindergarten mathematics teaching, of which the primary school low-level mathematics drawing book teaching research is the focus in the study.
3. “Mathematics Drawing Book” in the Lower Grades of Primary School Teaching in the Application of the Status Quo Combing
If the application of “mathematical drawing book” were a big tree, then the application of “low-level math drawing book of primary school” would be the thickest main branch. After careful study by the author, it was found that the researchers mainly focus on the following three aspects: why use the “mathematical drawing book” teaching, what do you teach with “mathematical drawing” and how to teach with “mathematics drawing book”.
3.1. Why Is Teaching in “Mathematical Drawings”?
First of all, from the characteristics of mathematics discipline, mathematics has a
high degree of abstraction, certainty of conclusions and the application of the three characteristics of the broad. To learn mathematics well, we must have three abilities, namely computing ability, spatial imagination ability and logical thinking ability, among which logical thinking ability is the core. Throughout the arrangement of our traditional mathematics teaching materials, there will be a knowledge point in the form of examples, although the creation of the problem of the situation is also stressed, with the children’s actual life there is still a certain distance, so that students feel bored.
Secondly, from the view of the age characteristics and psychological development law of the students in the lower part of primary school, who just entered the primary school to begin formal learning, they can master the concept of their own experience range, but not-too-close-to-life content is more difficult to understand.
Thirdly, from the characteristics of “mathematical drawing book”, “mathematical drawing book” is interesting. Mathematical drawing is through the two levels of pictures and text, affecting a mathematical story, and children have a special preference for drawing in the drawing book, so that for children, mathematical drawing telling the story is very interesting. A mathematical drawing book generally consistently tells a thing, in the picture of the cooperation, describes the story process, and adds a detailed plot introduction, so that students are able to concentrate, indulge in it, and want to figure it out exactly. Moreover, “mathematical drawing book” has a mathematical taste. The main difference between the comparison of other drawing books and “mathematical drawing book” is that it has the taste of mathematics, in the process of telling the story, allowing students to go through the process of discovering problems, analyzing problems, solving problems, and cultivating students’ ability to observe, generalize through spatial imagination and other mathematical abilities. Last but not least, “mathematical drawing” is useful. The stories in the mathematical drawing book are all based on what happens in real life as the carrier of the story. This is related to the mathematics requirements under the new curriculum, which is that mathematics teaching cannot be separated from life, leading to a life-based combination. The story in the drawing book is finished, and the mathematical knowledge contained therein is not quite finished (Zhang 2018).
It can be seen that mathematical drawing can help students better understand abstract mathematical concepts and develop the ability of information screening and combing, text interpretation, mathematical modeling and so on. In addition, mathematical reading can protect and exert students’ imagination, return mathematics learning to life itself, and open up the connection between mathematics and life. “Mathematics drawing book” is to trigger the students’ inner needs of a “key”, driving students unknowingly to explore the colorful world of mathematics, so that students will really like mathematics (Zhang, 2019).
3.2. What Do You Teach with “Mathematical Drawing Books”?
Mathematics drawing is a knowledge “collection”, including Chinese, science, art and other subjects of content, so what exactly is taught? At present, there are two kinds of bias in teaching for the use of drawing books: one is biased towards “drawing book”. The emphasis is on “reading”. The mathematical drawing book is only used as a story book, causing the lack of “mathematical taste”; In fact, first- and second-year students are curious and passionate about storylines. According to such learning laws and cognitive characteristics, the mathematical drawings are adapted and combed to extract the core problems and key knowledge points. In mathematics drawing, we should not only pay attention to text and images and stimulate students to think actively, but also to explore and interpret the “hidden line” of mathematical drawing book—“mathematical knowledge” (Wan, 2019). Therefore, the key to the teaching of mathematics drawing book is to let students find problems in the context of the story, and around it to explore and think, so that students experience and experience, so that “learning” really happens (Wang, 2019). In recent years, China’s education publishing houses introduced a large number of foreign excellent mathematics drawing books. The author combed the relevant research, organized a number of teaching materials by curriculum standards corresponding to the content of three-dimensional objectives of the drawing, such as South Korean titles “Love Mathematics from Childhood”, “Fun Math Painting”, “Hello, Mathematics” (As in Table 1).
3.3. How to Teach with Mathematical Picture Books
As can be seen from the table above, most of the mathematical drawings are
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Table 1. Mathematical drawing book item finishing (combined with the Western Division edition of the textbook).
compiled abroad, and their knowledge framework system, knowledge generation process and China’s local situation are quite different. While teaching with mathematical drawing books, it is necessary to effectively integrate and create the drawing books and teaching materials. In this process, we must pay attention to the match between the content of the drawing book and the knowledge of mathematics, the fit between the content of the drawing book and the activities of mathematics, and the thinking of the content and mathematical problems.
On the other hand, at different times, clever use of “mathematical drawing book”, mathematical reading, comprehensive practice, infiltration of mathematical thinking methods, etc., will achieve the effect of doing more with less. Because the drawing book is vivid, intuitive and interesting, it just builds a bridge between the students’ concrete image thinking and abstract logical thinking. Most researchers find that according to the unit knowledge point arrangement of the corresponding drawing book content, the application of mathematical drawing book is also very important. Some drawing books should be arranged to read before the new teaching class, so as to stimulate students’ desire to explore new knowledge, and some mathematical drawing books, after cutting, adapting and reorganization can be applied to the class, thus playing a series of knowledge, and guide students according to the storyline development, step by step to explore relevant mathematical knowledge. Some are arranged after teaching to be read as an extension of knowledge (Qi, 2017; Lin, 2017). In addition, teachers can also carry out mathematics drawing book reading activities in the class. There are individual reading, parent-child reading, group reading, class reading and other forms, and some schools will regularly update the math drawing book list every year. The use of drawing book in the students; learning process, help them in the study of mathematics knowledge behind the mathematical methods, mathematics thought, mathematics spirit, so that mathematics drawing book stands in the true sense of service to mathematics teaching (Chen & Zhou, 2019; Zhou, 2019).
Throughout the history of the application and teaching of the “Mathematics Drawing Book”, it has been in the early development since 2010 and is now in hot demand. In the “mathematics drawing book” research wave, not only are there first-line teachers, but also teaching and research personnel and university scholars, etc. In general, although the current research is very hot, it’s still in the development stage, and research and practice need to be further deepened, some problems need to be further improved.
4. The “Mathematical Drawing Book” Application of the Proposal
For the mathematical drawing book, only choose the right one and use it well. It will not live up to the drawing book itself, neither will live up to the students.
4.1. From the Math Drawing Class to the Math Drawing Course
In the process of combing the literature, the author found that the existing research is either a partial analysis of the mathematical drawing book, or a summary of a wonderful mathematical drawing course, but there is no systematic math drawing in this course. One or two interesting and wonderful math painting lessons, cannot fully play the role of mathematics drawin nor better serve the students’ mathematics learning. In the course of practice, we must establish a structured and systematic mathematics drawing course. This requires teachers to think about the goal orientation of the curriculum, tap the resources of the mathematics drawing course, carry out the management of the mathematics drawing course, evaluate the students’ learning situation, etc. (Lv, 2019). Such a math painting course can have a lasting impact on students, who will dive into long-term immersion in the painting culture and better understand that the mathematics painting book contains the “essence”.
4.2. From School Teaching to Family Educations
Now that most of the research of “mathematics drawing book” is carried out from the perspective of school mathematics teaching, the research object is mostly how to impart “mathematics drawing book” class, but the dimension is relatively single, ignoring the core literacy of students as the main body of the development system research. The impact of the math drawing book on the promotion of the core mathematics literacy of students in the lower stages of primary school is not mentioned on how parents can effectively guide their children to read the “mathematics drawing book” and the “family school co-education mode”. If the “mathematics drawing book” is a recommended math reading, let children read with their parents at home, according to the content of the drawing book and the production of effective parents math drawing guidebook, to help parents at home while they themselves can also effectively learn mathematics, and not only expand the limited time and space in school, but also enhance parent-child relationship (Chen, 2019).
4.3. From Passive Learning to Active Learning
At present, “mathematics drawing book” mostly serves mathematics teaching. Teachers and parents use mathematics drawing book as a carrier. The mathematical knowledge, methods, ideas among other things are perfectly integrated together. The purpose is to develop students’ mathematical thinking ability, improve students’ ability to learn independently and become a free man who can adapt to the future life. School education is to a large extent, also children follow the teacher’s design and arrangements for passive completion. If students enjoy math drawing books and have the ability to read independently, they can take the initiative to find problems in the math drawing story, follow the development of the story to try to analyze the problem, from a large number of graphic information screening effective information and solving problem, hence unknowingly exercise their abilities and develop the habit of active learning. Mathematics drawing book reading allows students to increase the breadth, thickness and depth of learning, and finally let students change their way, acquire a different vision, a different kind of thinking to meet the rich, beautiful side of mathematics (Guo, 2019).
5. Conclusion
By using the visualization analysis method of knowledge map, this paper combs the literature on “mathematical picture books” from 2008 to 2021, and finds that the number of literature on “mathematical picture books” has increased year by year since 2012. Chen Yanhong, Qiu Luqin, Wu Nianyang and other scholars have great influence, and the most concentrated research is the application of “mathematical picture books” in “low primary school teaching”. The research content mainly has three aspects: first, the reason of using “mathematical picture books” for teaching is mainly that the mathematical knowledge itself is boring, the children in low primary school are young, the understanding of mathematical concepts is limited, and the mathematical picture books are intuitive and interesting, which can effectively help students better understand abstract mathematical concepts and develop the ability of screening and combing information, text interpretation and mathematical modeling. Second, the teaching content of “mathematical picture books” is mainly to let students find problems in the context of the story, and explore and think around it, in which way students can experience and feel it, so that “learning” really occurs. On this basis, the author also combs and lists the picture books corresponding to the three-dimensional target content of textbooks and curriculum standards. Third, the teaching method of “mathematical picture books” is used to skillfully use the “mathematical picture books” to introduce excitement into the classroom, and carry out mathematical reading, comprehensive practice, parent-child reading, group reading, class reading and other ways to lengthen students’ learning process, so that students can profoundly understand the mathematical method thought and spirit behind mathematical knowledge, and make mathematical picture books serve mathematics teaching.
At present, there are not only front-line teachers, but also teaching and research personnel and university scholars paying attention to “mathematical picture books”, but it needs to be further deepened in the practice of primary school mathematics teaching, and the scope and method of its use need to be improved. Therefore, the author suggests that in low-level mathematics teaching, primary school mathematics picture books should move from mathematics picture books to mathematics picture books, from school teaching to family education, from teacher teaching to students’ autonomous reading, namely from passive learning to active learning. In this way, neither the picture book itself nor the students can be ignored.