Mathematics 2Module Details

Rationale
This course builds-up on Mathematics 1, providing various concepts, skills and abilities for the potential teachers to grasp the more complex concepts and the methodologies of mathematics in order to prepare the learners for later school levels. The aim is to ground the potential teacher in different mathematics specifics that later become specialisations. Providing the diverse mathematics concepts and their arrangements equips the potential teacher in better understanding the course for this all-important level. The students can later specialise in a given area as they improve their professional career. In this course the students engage in the study of pure and denominate numbers. Calculus is extended to functions of several variables. Further topics in linear algebra are also examined, introducing concepts such as basis, dimension and eigenvectors. The study of ordinary differential equations is continued and extended to higher order equations and systems of differential equations. These fundamental techniques in applied mathematics will be applied to problems in Newtonian mechanics, which will serve as the main example of how mathematics is used to describe the physical world. The course further contains many different concepts, including geometric shapes, points, the Cartesian plane, plane and space shapes and dimension. The above concepts among others listed in the course content are of importance to understanding mathematics.

Learning Outcomes
At the end of the course students will be expected to:

i.    Explain examples of general measurement concepts as they may be used in the primary school.
ii.   Solve mathematical problems in the classroom.
iii.   Differentiate two dimensional (2-D) and three dimensional (3-D) shapes and describe fundamental properties of shapes.
iv.   Model mechanical problems in both Cartesian and polar coordinate systems.
v.    Solve problems based on Newton's Laws via principles of Work, Energy and Momentum.
vi.   Analyse the number of faces, edges and vertices of three-dimensional shapes in order to classify three dimensional shapes into different types of polyhedral.
vii.  Calculate the area of a parallelogram, the area and parameter of a trapezoid and perimeter of a triangle and composite shape.
viii. Gain understanding of the fundamentals of algebra and apply accordingly.
ix.   Describe the purposes of continuous assessment, recording, and reporting in promoting mathematical learning.
x.    Explain key statistical concepts to be used in primary schools.