Book Review : Sharpening Logic Through Mathematics Learning

SHARPENING LOGIC THROUGH MATHEMATICS LEARNING

A. The Identity of The Book

Book title   : MATHEMATICS 2 FOR JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL YEAR VIII

Author        : Marsigit

Publisher     : Yudhistira

Copyright   : 2009

Thick book : 292 pages; 1.5 cm

Reviewer    : Ifani Rahadian Saputri

B. Description Of The Contents Of The Book

Mathematics is a science that underlies all other sciences. Mathematics is a science in its own right, rather than a branch of natural science. Since the beginning of human civilization, the math will always be the most fundamental science. Some even say that mathematics is a parent of other science developments. Learning math is not just memorizing formulas, but should be able to understand the basic concept of the math. If we only memorize the formula, then the understanding of mathematics is impossible we can get. In this book there is a description of the material and its exercises. This book discusses the material for junior high school class VIII consists of seven chapters. The material covered in this book, the first is Algebra and Its Application. Algebra expression is a statement consisting meaningful combinations of coefficient and variables. In this chapter is discussed about algebraic expressions, algebraic factorizations, and fractions operation of algebraic expressions. Secondly is Relation and Functions. In this chapter is discussed about relations, functions, and value of function. In chapter relation and function explained that the relation from set M to set N is a rule of pairing elements in set M with elements in set N. Then, function or mapping from set A to set B is a special relation that pairs every element in A to exact one element in B. The third chapter is about Equations of a Straight Line. In the third chapter discussed about characteristic of a straight line's equation, gradient, and line's equations. The fourth chapter is about System of Linear Equations in Two Variables. The material covered in this chapter include linear equations in one variable, linear equations in two variables, and system of linear equations in two variables. The five chapter is The Pythagorean Theorem. In this chapter will be discussed about the Pythagorean theorem, the length of sides of a right angle triangle, the length of sides of any triangles, the ratio sides of some special right triangles, and Pythagorean theorem in daily life. The six chapter is about Circle. The materials that discussed in this topic such as introducing circle and its parts, central angles and the circumference angles, tangents of circle, and the inscribe and circumvented triangles of circle. The seven chapter is Polyhedral. In this chapter will be discussed about prisms, cubes, rectangular prisms, and pyramids. By studying various forms of polyhedral, then we can figure out how to determine the breadth and volume of polyhedral. The seventh chapter is the whole material that must be mastered for students of class VIII.

C. The Advantages of Book

In terms of its physical, good quality book covers and colours attract the attention of the reader. Used good quality paper, thick, and using a variety of colour ink, so that will add interest to read it. When viewed in terms of its content, in the book comes with a related image illustration chapter covered. It would really help the reader understand the material. Moreover the language used is also easy to understand for all walks of life, especially for students from junior high school. This book comes with practice questions, so that the reader can train of logic to solve problems of mathematics. With the model of bilingual books prints as in the book, is very easy for the reader to better understand the meaning. So it's not boring when reading this book. The book is organized in full, clear, and thorough. So the book becomes interesting and easy to read.

D. The Lack Of Books

This book is in shortage problems such exercises do not come with answer keys. There are actually some people who agree and some are not agree if a book comes with a discussion of the matter. In my opinion, when it comes to the discussion of the question, the students would be more convinced by the answers obtained, and will help the student thinking in solving mathematics problem. With the discussion of these questions, students can learn more independently. This book is based on the curriculum in 2006, while currently has implemented a curriculum of 2013. It would be nice if this updated book curriculum, so according to the curriculum that is applied at this time.

E. Conclusion

This book deserves to be read for all walks of life. Although this book is used for the secondary school students, but the material in the book is very extensive, so that it can be the source for the whole circle. Then from that book, entitled "Mathematics 2 for Junior High School Year VIII" becomes very important. Through this book students can train the ability of logic so as to be able to think rationally and systematically. It cannot be denied that our current life is a life of mathematical convenience. We are now living on the basis of mathematical principles that are helpful in solving problems in everyday life. So this book is worth it for everybody to add deeper insights about the science of mathematics.

THE SECRET WAYS TO BE A GOOD COMPETENT IN ENGLISH

Until we should consider some points. First about preparation,  preparation is very important. Before we do everything not only for being master of ceremony, but for doing everything, so preparation is everything. He even say that preparation is everything. Why ? Because it is such kind of “kodrat, takdir, or sunatullah”. Being a human life, that life is something moving a process and circling moving from the past, present, and future. So, the past is a preparation for present and the present time is a preparation for the future. So, in order that, we are able to perform the best in the present or also we do the best preparation in the past in order that we do able to perform the best in the future. We should do the best preparation in the present. So preparation is very important. What should we do to prepare a preparation in there are many aspects :

a)    First our psychology, our emotion, and then our personality and our attitude and behavior, that's very important. In order we have good attitude, good behavior, personality, so we should be aware of everything related to aim, the purpose that we will do and we order should to understand about the knowledge, understand about the people, understand about even, understand about the program. And we have contextually experience involving in the activity, because our involvement in the activity will make us good understanding and then will make us to feel confident. Our confident is very important. So we also should understand about the relationship among the people, position of the people, and the assignment from the people, and the structure of the community, the structure of institution the time and the program. It is about preparation.

b)     The next step in a preparation is doing simulation to simulate a commonly people said as “gladi resik”. “Gladi kotor and gladi resik” doing simulation can be conducted by individual people or by a group of people or by a whole community. We our self as a master of ceremony and conduct a simulation in our room but is whole all member of community can conduct together in the same time, in the same place to simulate what will happen next day or tomorrow when the even start to begin. Simulation is very important.

c)     And then the next thing is getting skill and experience. After you try to prepare to simulated and then we try to get our skill. Skill in influencing peoples, skill in introducing something, skill in sharing information, etc. So to get our skill and our competence we need a basic competence. Basic competence a cover for example pronunciation, good pronunciation, loud but not too loud, soft but not too soft so.

Experience, doing experience , so in order to get experience you need to get a skill and we need to get a understanding. We can learn from everywhere anytime, whatever of resource, now we can browse internet to look for, to find out, the reference related to our plan activity. As we here all this morning that some of us have similar resources, no problem. But, because language need skill, need to repeat and repeat again. So, sometimes we just need to copy, to copy other people in talking, in presenting, in posting something in front of audience. I think that’s all about the first part that’s all about being master of ceremony because in the next here probably we will involve in such kind of event because our department, our faculty sometimes conducting national seminar and international seminar of mathematics and mathematics education. In which involving many students as committee, possibly some of we chosen as a master of ceremony. Secondly, in here he would like to remind we and to remember we about continue our reading my posting by making a comment again, please write our English in standard English. The longer the better, the longer our sentences is better, to get more experiences in writing English and for somebody for we that we feel  not good achievement in here, we should work hard to collect our point. Collecting number of comment. He wishes to talk about developing English for mathematics. He also would like to remember we that, please read his junior text book for grade 1,2,and 3. Because he will take some materials from the text book to be final examination. So, if we can learn from the meeting between us and him, there are some remark here.

a)       The first, he assume that we are an adult people, the characteristic of adult people is that we can take we own responsibility that we have learnt.

b)      Number two, his philosophy of teaching for him to teach is to facilitate we all in order that we are able to learn English individually and collaboratively.

c)    Number three, his philosophy of learning. Learning is constructing, we can learn something if we learn the concept of A. So, really for him we try to construct the concept of A, so learning is to construct. In general learning is to construct  our  life, learning is to construct our English. So, he like we to have a different achievement of English. So, the kind and the type of English depend on our activity.So, as the adult learner we have a responsibility to actively construct our own English. Constructing our own English by reading, by writing, by speaking, by translating, by discussing, etc.

d)      Number four, the philosophy of learning resources. The learning resources, he develops is that we can learn from everything that lives in surrounding us can be use as learning resources. So, we can learn English from the books, television, newspaper, internet, or direct communication with native speaker.

e)    The next is about examination or evaluation. How can he evaluate we or how can he evaluate our competence and our English? So, he use portfolio, he use documentation contain our achievement.

At the end of this semester he will close his blog, maybe we can still open my blog, but we can’t access and we can’t give a comment. Possibly we can give a comment, but our comment cannot deliver to my email at the end of this month. So please use the time effectively to improve our comment. And then he will combine the result and the comment also, but speaking here is a highly score and also the comment also has a high score.  And a examination only small portion. Especially in a specific translation about mathematics and written mathematics in English, he thinks it is very easy because most of mathematics written in symbolic language. So, if we have experiences in communication in general he think we can also have experiences, a good competences in explaining elaborating mathematics in English.