Senior cycle mathematics curricula in the Republic of Ireland: Courses for the 1990s — gospels, epistles and revelations?

References

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• Manipulative skills are avoided rather than developed. An “engineer's handbook approach” is used: that is, students are asked to acquire the skill of identifying a formula of form “x = expression,” where “x” is the unknown they wish to find, and the values of all variables in “expression” are available, “x” can then be found by substitution and computation.
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• Ibid.
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• Ibid.
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• The author is grateful to Dr. Séamus McGuinness for drawing attention to some of the implications of this.
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• Note: the author would like to correct an error in that paper. On p. 150 (footnote 41), the input that led to a change in the geometry syllabus was attributed to the Royal Irish Academy's National Sub‐Commission for Mathematical Instruction. According to Professor Don McQuillan (personal communication), it should have been attributed to the National University of Ireland.
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