Pre-Service Teachers’ Approaches to Guiding Students in Problem Solving Process (original) (raw)
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European Journal of Science and Mathematics Education, 2014
The mathematics of the middle school has an important place in developing of algebraic thinking. Middle grades correspond to transition from arithmetic to algebra. According to Thompson and Smith (2007), quantitative reasoning provides a smooth transition from arithmetic reasoning to algebraic reasoning as a glue. Sixth grade and verbal problems are important in developing quantitative reasoning. On the other hand, As Harel (2008) emphasized, the important thing in problem solving is the ways of thinking rather than answering the problems correctly in school mathematics. Therefore, developing thinking ways of students is one of the responsibilities of mathematics teachers. This responsibility can get more difficult for pre-algebra students like sixth grade students. In this study, it was aimed to investigate pre-service middle school mathematics teachers' guidance for sixth grade students in problem solving process. This is a qualitatively designed study in which the data was collected through 10 pre-services teachers' clinical interviews with sixth grade middle school students. Data was analysed qualitatively by using content analysis technique. It was found that pre-service middle school mathematics teachers focused on students' getting the result rather than guiding their thinking ways. The abstract should be typed here (maximum 250 words).
European Journal of Educational Research, 2020
This study investigated the development of problem-solving strategies demonstrated by 42 elementary pre-service mathematics teachers in problem-solving mathematics classes. The study used a mixed methods approach of quantitative and qualitative research by analyzing the collected data.. The quantitative portion calculates the frequencies and percentage of the participants’ responses to the problems posed in three different phases of the intervention: before, during, and after receiving the mathematics lessons. The qualitative approach was used for in-depth investigation to describe various mathematical problem-solving strategies demonstrated by participants across the three different research phases. Findings of the study indicated a limited number of problem-solving strategies present during the first phase of research such as “use arithmetic operation strategy,” and “make a drawing strategy,”. During the implementation of the problem-solving lessons and classroom discussion, the p...
Magistra Iadertina, 2018
Problem solving in schools begins with mathematics teachers. The degree to which mathematics teachers are prepared to teach for, about and through problem solving influences on their implementation of problem solving in school. We conducted a small scale study where we examined the effect of implementation of heuristic strategies and Polya's steps in mathematics method course. We assessed pre-service teachers' knowledge and attitudes about them as problem solvers before and after the course. Moreover we assessed their beliefs of problem solving in school mathematics. Those beliefs were assessed in two occasions: right after the course and after finished teaching practice. Although students' knowledge on problem solving was improved, the results of students' beliefs show that it is important that pre-service teachers, and consequently in-service teachers, are constantly reminded on the positive effect of constructivist and inquirybased approach on teaching mathematics.
Questioning Skills of Pre-Service Middle School Mathematics Teachers in the Problem-Solving Process
Journal of International Social Research, 2017
Problem-solving has an important place in middle-school mathematics. Mathematics teachers play a significant role in improving problem-solving skills of the students. The purpose of the study is to investigate the questioning skills of pre-service middleschool mathematics teachers in the problem-solving processes of sixth grade students. Fourteen volunteer pre-service middle-school mathematics teachers in the third year of the undergraduate program participated in the study. The participants conducted clinical interviews with one sixth grade student in the scope of provided mathematics problem. The results indicated that most of the participants could not use appropriate questioning considering the phases of problem-solving process. Moreover, these pre-service teachers focused on the solution of the problem and they ignored especially the phases of understanding the problem and developing a plan regarding the problem. Only four of the pre-service teachers were able to support mental process of students in problem-solving via their questioning. The results revealed that enabling students to construct quantitative relationships depends on pre-service teachers' appropriate questioning. Therefore, it is suggested that specific courses developing both the problem-solving and questioning skills of pre-service teachers should be integrated into the mathematics teacher education programs.
How To Improve Pre-Service Mathematics Teachers' Problem-Solving Competencies (Case Study)
Technium Social Sciences Journal
Lower and upper secondary school mathematics offers a few tools for solving mathematical problems (e. g., equational strategy or other algorithmic ones). At the beginning of the university study our students (pre-service mathematics teachers) know how to use them, but they have no experience with solving strategies such as systematic experimentation or drawing a picture. This paper presents our lesson plan to improve their solving competencies and its results. The special attention is given to the process of mathematics problem-solving and its fourth phase ‘looking back’ that we understand in a broader sense, not only as a test of correctness. The results of this case study aim to show and understand how students learn and use various solving strategies in problem-solving and how they pose other word problems with the same solution as the solution of the given word problems. The analysis finds that even though students understand the importance of non-standard strategies (e.g., tria...
Journal of International Social Research, 2016
The purpose of this qualitative study is to investigate the questioning skills and conceptions of four volunteer preservice middle school mathematics teachers within the context of problem solving and the relationships between their questioning skills and conceptions, if any. The data of the study was collected through clinical interviews. Firstly, each participant conducted a clinical interview with an eighth grade student within the context of a given mathematical problem. Secondly, participants were interviewed to reveal their conceptions on problem and problem solving process. The findings revealed that three of the four preservice teachers could not use appropriate questioning in the problem solving process. Additionally, none of them could make the formal definition of problem and problem solving phases. A consistent relationship between the conceptions of the participants and their practices in the clinical interviews they conducted with the eighth grade students was discovered.
Mathematical Problem-Solving in Action: Teachers' Strategies and Approaches in the Classroom
The development of students' mathematical problem-solving skills is contingent upon the approaches and methods employed by primary school teachers. This research endeavors to scrutinize the effectiveness of primary school teachers in their roles within the problem-solving process, with particular attention directed toward their inquiry techniques, instructional approaches, and responses to student errors. Employing as a explanatory mixed-design research, firstly quantitative data were obtained from the primary school teachers (N=116) and analyzed by applying the questionnaire form developed by the researchers; additionally, qualitative data were obtained by conducting focus group interviews with a subset of participants (N=6) based on the information obtained from these data. Thereby, teachers get opportunity to share their ideas in the process. Second phase of the research aimed to develop the active roles of the participants in the problem-solving process. The research outcomes underscore that teachers frequently gravitate toward questioning techniques and teaching methods that promote a nuanced comprehension of the problem. There also appears to be an underutilization of inquiries pertaining to prediction, generalization, and collaborative group work. Furthermore, the research unveils an array of strategies employed by teachers to rectify student errors. These encompass commonly employed techniques such as question-answer, exemplification, and lecture responses, irrespective of the specific type of the question posed.
Education Quarterly Reviews, 2021
The aim of this study is to examine the problem-solving processes and problem-posing skills of pre-service mathematics teachers, which consists of four stages (understanding the problem, preparing a plan for the solution, applying the plan, evaluating) defined by Polya (1997) with the progressive scoring scale based on the alternative assessment approach. Qualitative research approach has been adopted in the study. Participants of the study consist of 71 pre-service teachers studying at the department of primary education mathematics teaching at the education faculty of a state university in the Southeastern Anatolia region of Turkey. Since the problem solving and problem posing behaviors of the participants were examined separately in the study, the gradual scoring scale developed by Baki (2008) was used. As a result of the analysis, it was determined that the participants showed the highest performance in the category of understanding the problem, and the lowest performance in the...
Preservice teachers’ problem-solving processes
Mathematics Education Research Journal, 1998
The purpose of the study reported in this paper is to explore some of the common difficulties with mathematical word problems experienced by preservice primary teachers. It examines weaknesses in students' content and procedural knowledge, with a particular focus on how they apply these aspects of knowledge to solving closed word problems" The SOLO Taxonomy (Biggs & Collis, 1982, 1991) is used to classify the processes used by students who attempted to solve a group of word problems of varying difficulty. Other characteristics of the students' processes that are analysed include the way they used the cues provided in the problem, the way they brought in additional concepts or processes, and the types of errors they made.
Challenging preservice teachers to produce varied mathematical problem solving strategies
2018
This paper presents preliminary results of a research project that aims to investigate preservice teachers’ capacity to produce and analyse solution strategies to solve mathematical problems. From a methodological point of view, the study is of a qualitative nature and is being developed with future kindergarten and primary teachers who are enrolled in mathematical courses of a bachelor degree in elementary education at a public teacher education institute in central Portugal. The results suggest that although there has been an incipient progress concerning the production, by the future teachers, of more than one strategy to solve the same problems, reaching this goal is not an easy endeavour. It requires a deep and flexible knowledge about the mathematical content in order to be able to analyse problems from several points of view.