Abstract
The formulation of learning objectives is considered an important task for teaching at all educational levels. However, teachers tend to trivialize learning objectives and consider them as part of an administrative requirement. This study sought to characterize the specific learning objectives for two school mathematics tasks posed by primary teachers in training, and to study the differences in the objectives proposed for each task. By means of a semantic questionnaire, the proposals were collected, classified and analysed using categories based on a triad of components for a specific objective: capability, content, and context. The responses show both an instrumental approach—where knowledge consists in mastering techniques and algorithms useful to furthering certain behaviours and attaining specific objectives—and a structural approach—where knowledge consists in a structured system of formalized rules and concepts based on the deduction. Moreover, this expectation depends on the kind of school task.
Highlights
Mathematics teaching is acknowledged to be a demanding and difficult profession, requiring knowledge and understanding drawing from several disciplines (Putra, 2019)
In the last few decades, precise descriptions of the specific contents and competences that should be addressed in pre-service mathematics teacher training and its present shortcomings have been amply studied (Carrillo, Climent, & Contreras, 2013; Petrou & Goulding, 2011)
Though managing learning expectations is currently considered an important task for teaching at all educational levels (Hiebert, Morris, & Spitzer, 2018), teachers tend to consider the objectives as part of an administrative requirement, usually avoiding them or appropriating objectives already proposed (DeLong, Winter, & Yackel, 2005b)
Summary
Mathematics teaching is acknowledged to be a demanding and difficult profession, requiring knowledge and understanding drawing from several disciplines (Putra, 2019). Among the competencies of teachers, one of the most remarkable is classroom planning, a rational process focused on anticipating the students’ learning process by designing teaching sequences and providing articulated resources and reasoned responses to achieve the purposes of education by means of mathematics content (Landmann, 2013; Rico & Ruiz-Hidalgo, 2018). Teachers select and declare their learning expectations involved in the acquisition and development of knowledge, capabilities and attitudes of students. Though managing learning expectations is currently considered an important task for teaching at all educational levels (Hiebert, Morris, & Spitzer, 2018), teachers tend to consider the objectives as part of an administrative requirement, usually avoiding them or appropriating objectives already proposed (DeLong, Winter, & Yackel, 2005b). Even today “learning objectives have tended to become so trivialized and generalized that they communicate little more than the topic to be covered” (Gander, 2006, p. 9)
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