EFFECTIVE TEACHING METHODS FOR BASIC EDUCATION (original) (raw)
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Teaching as an Invitation to Reasoning
One aim of education is the transmission of knowledge. The present paper argues that in order to achieve this aim teachers should be exemplars of reasoning for their students. The contents of education are typically propositions or theories that cannot be accepted without understanding how the related beliefs are justified through inferences from given premises. If a belief is inferentially justified, however, in order to understand how it is justified, one has to follow the reasoning that leads to a particular conclusion. For this reason, in their classes, teachers should not be expected to provide a kind of testimony but rather a kind of argumentation. The students cannot simply believe what they are told because the teacher said it; rather, they have to understand the arguments that support the teacher's claim. When a teacher presents an argument to them, the students will follow it with the attention required to grasp it themselves if they see the teacher's reasoning as a successful practice in which they want to be involved.
Teacher’s Actions to Promote Students’ Justifications
Acta Scientiae
Justification is a mathematical reasoning process that relies on concepts, properties or mathematical ideas and, in certain situations, particular cases, being a fundamental part of the proof. The teacher needs to promote justification in the classroom, as it is essential to the development of students' mathematical knowledge. This study aims to understand how a set of design principles regarding tasks and teacher's actions contributes to enhance students' justifications in whole-class mathematical discussions and to understand what kinds of justifications emerge in those discussions. The intervention, part of a design-based research, occurs in a grade 7 class of an experienced teacher, in nine classes about linear equations. The data collection includes classroom observations (video and audio recorded) and a logbook. Data analysis considers a set of design principles, a conceptual framework for teacher actions, and a conceptual framework for student justifications. The results show that certain sequences of teacher actions based on the design principles allow students to present quite complete justifications based on logical coherence and mathematical aspects of the situation.
2014
This paper reports the findings of a study where student teachers’ practical reasoning and the development of professional knowledge were investigated during teaching practice in pre-service class teacher education. The model of student teachers’ supervision applying the philosophy and principles of the practical argument approach was used in the study and data collection. In this model practical argument premises can be situational, empirical, stipulative or they can be based on value assessments. The videos of student teachers’ lessons, stimulated recall interviews and critical incidents, were used in order to grasp the situationality and contextuality of the classroom reality. Results show that student teachers mainly expressed situational and empirical premises in their practical argumentation. Stipulative and value premises were also present, but to a lesser degree. During the process, the student teachers developed their arguments from situational and empirical premises towards new value premises and reflections on the stipulative premises guiding their work.
Qualitative reasoning techniques to support learning by teaching
2001
This paper describes the use of qualitative reasoning mechanisms in designing computer-based teachable agents that users explicitly teach to solve problems using concept maps. Users can construct the required problem-solving knowledge structures without becoming involved in sophisticated programming activities. Once taught, the agent attempts to answer questions using qualitative reasoning schemes that are intuitive and easy to apply. Students can reflect on the agent’s responses, and then revise and refine this knowledge through visual interfaces. Preliminary studies have demonstrated the effectiveness of this approach.
Practical Reasoning: Constructivist Theory and Practice in Teacher Education
1993
Constructivism is a perspective on learning that is initiated from the learner's perspective rather than by that of the teacher; understanding is constructed by the learner rather than placed upon the learner. If constructivism is fostered in teacher education, practical reasoning can encourage teacher development to its fullest. (The concept of practical reasoning was originally proposed by Aristotle and has been further clarified and applied to education by philozophers and educators.) In the course of the teacher education program, interaction takes place between what the preservice teachers are taught and what they bring to the learning situation; practical reasoning provides a mechanism which allows each preservice teacher to develop a constructivist undeistanding. Crucial to a constructivist approach to teacher education is the avoidance of prescribing rules that must be followed by every teacher. While recommendations regarding the best possible teacher practices are common in teacher education, constructivist teacher education will not allow thc same outcomes for each teacher. First, each teacher brings a unique background that will interact with the new material in unique ways to result in unique understandings. Second, when teacher education students become student teachers and teachers, these constructed understandings will interact with yet one more particular aspect, that of their particular classroom situation. A practical reasoning approach to teacher education allows the constructivist perspective on learning to prosper in teacher education. (Contains 29 references.) (ND) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document.
Exploring the Pedagogical Reasoning of Skilled Teachers
DESCRIPTION Paper presented at the Australasian Science Education Research Association Annual Conference, (July 2014). Melbourne, Victoria. Abstract In an era of Standards and teacher accountability, the question of how to determine pedagogical expertise has become all the more important. Shulman introduced the construct of pedagogical reasoning to describe teachers’ thinking as they plan and reflect on ways of making content material pedagogically powerful. His work is much cited, but rich descriptions and analyses of the pedagogical reasoning of expert (as distinct from merely experienced) teachers are rare. This session reports issues and early data from a new project in this area. The project has had two stages, both involving collaborative teacher research. A pilot project, involving teachers skilled at promoting metacognition, revealed that the teachers’ pedagogical reasoning involved a constant interplay between (at least) four foci, framing and sequencing “big ideas”, genera...
PRIMARY STUDENTS' REASONING IN PROBLEM SOLVING AND TEACHERS' EVALUATION OF THEIR ARGUMENTS
We examine 5th and 6th grade students' ability to reason during problem solving activity and teachers' evaluation of their arguments. Three tasks were distributed to 236 students asking them to decide on the conclusion and justify their decisions. Indicative examples of the students' responses were given to 16 teachers for assessment during semi-structured interviews. The results suggest that a considerable proportion of students provide no mathematical justification and another proportion supported their argument on numerical examples. Some teachers were found to value justifications based on numerical examples as equally good and occasionally even better than mathematically valid statements. It seems that any effort for improvement should start from changing teachers' views and didactical processes.
reasoning is an important ability to understand science and mathematics concepts. The aim has been to increase this ability by means of mathematic problems and cooperative learning. This experiment has been carried out with six groups: the students have to do some mathematics problems. In the control groups, there was no aid from the professor, and in the experimental groups the professor solved any existing doubt. A pretest and posttest was done in order to consider if the professor's teaching had caused any difference. The results showed that the problems produced a gain and the intervention of the professor increased the gain in the experimental groups.
Pre-Service Primary School Teachers' Logical Reasoning Skills
2013
Logical reasoning skills are important for a successful mathematical learning and in students’ future career. These skills are essential for a primary school teacher, because they need to explain solving methods and solutions to their pupils. In this research we studied pre-service primary school teachers’ logical reasoning skills. The results show that only one third of the students gave an argumentation for their answer: a very small percentage gave a complete, correct argumentation for the solution of the problem; one fifth of the students had an incomplete argumentation, missing important steps of the logical reasoning; and one tenth of the students made mistakes in their reasoning. These results highlight the importance of developing future primary school teachers’ logical reasoning skills.