A Conception for Combinatorics with Emphasis on Problem-solving

Abstract

The article deals with a conception for teaching high-school combinatorics, which aims to avoid solving problems by a purely formal approach. The inspiration comes from elementary school textbooks of Prof.

Hejný. We designed four environments for building combinatorial thinking.

These are paths, tournaments, translations, and games. The article contains example problems from each environment.

Keywords

• combinatorics
• problem-based teaching
• problem-solving
• didactic environments