Mathematical culture a crucial approach to understanding the nature of mathematical knowledge, but it has been mostly ignored in traditional teaching for a long time. This research was a theoretical and reflexive study on how mathematical culture can be conducted in practical teaching in terms of theoretical and practical aspects. In terms of theory, this research provided a definition of mathematical culture and explained the dual dimensions of mathematical culture, that is, “mathematics in culture” and “culture of mathematics,” followed by the definition of “mathematical cultural literacy” to explore the meaning of mathematic cultural literacy in education. For the practical aspect, by referring to the humanistic spirit of mathematics, this research focused on two lesson plans—the Fibonacci Sequence and the Monty Hall Problem. Furthermore, two lesson plans were implemented for middle school and high school students. The findings indicated that, although the students were highly appreciative of the lesson plan content, they failed to be impressed by the connection between mathematics and the natural world in teaching the Fibonacci sequence. For the Monty Hall problem lesson plan, results also demonstrated that approximately half of the participating high school students still had difficulties in generalizing the concept of conditional probability.
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A Theoretical and Reflexive Study on Cultivating Literacy of Mathematical Culture by Using Lesson Plans from Humanistic Mathematics
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