Junior high school mathematics teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge in teaching of polyhedra

Abstract

A teacher plays an important role in developing students’ knowledge and skills in learning mathematics. This article focuses on the development of mathematics teachers’ Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) in the teaching of polyhedra, particularly on cube and cuboid for Year 8 students. PCK is a special knowledge for teacher integrating content knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, and knowledge of students. Content knowledge is defined as knowledge on facts, concepts, relations among concepts, and procedures about mathematics, particularly the concept of polyhedra. Pedagogical knowledge refers to teacher’s knowledge in organizing teaching and learning process of polyhedra, while knowledge of students is defined as teacher’s knowledge on students’ difficulties and mistakes on polyhedra. Data were gathered by recording the teaching and learning process and interviewing the students. The data were analyzed by reduction, categorization, and interpretation. The result showed that the teacher tended to combine the conceptual and procedural explanation to correct the mistakes and address the difficulties of students on polyhedra by providing scaffolding and employing peer tutoring.