Two Primary Teachers Developing their Teaching Problem-solving during Three-year In-service Training

Päivi Maria Portaankorva-Koivisto,Maija Ahtee,Anu Tuulikki Laine

doi:10.29333/iejme/9617

Päivi Maria Portaankorva-Koivisto, Maija Ahtee + Show 1 more

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https://doi.org/10.29333/iejme/9617

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Abstract

The use of open problem-solving tasks in mathematics education challenges teachers’ beliefs, knowledge and practices. This article examines the practices of two primary teachers and their 3rd to 5th grade classes during a three-year in-service teacher training project aiming to increase mathematical problem-solving in class. Three lesson videos and two interviews with each teacher were used to provide the data for this study. The results show how different teachers in terms of their beliefs, knowledge and practices during the problem-solving activities can produce mathematically different learning opportunities. Teacher Ann saw mathematics as too rigorous, and to combat this, gave her pupils a great deal of autonomy. Her pupils were encouraged to come up with creative solutions. Teacher Beate emphasized mathematical understanding. Her pupils were guided cognitively and they came up with mathematically elegant solutions. In teaching open problem-solving both autonomy and cognitive guidance are needed.

Highlights

Problem-solving is important in today’s increasingly interconnected world (OECD, 2017)
The aim of this paper is to examine the different ways in which the two Finnish primary teachers’ beliefs, knowledge and practices interacted when learning to teach mathematical problem-solving
The aim of this study was to describe how two primary teachers increased their understanding of mathematical problemsolving in a three-year in-service teacher training project

Summary

Introduction

Problem-solving is important in today’s increasingly interconnected world (OECD, 2017). We will first say something about the status of problem-solving in teaching mathematics in Finland and deal more about the Finland-Chile research project. The Finnish national curriculum (FNBE, 2014) emphasizes the use of problem-solving, but according to Krzywacki, Pehkonen, and Laine (2016) teachers report not having enough time for this. This is due to the fact that teachers are very loyal to textbooks and even though textbooks contain problem-solving tasks, it is the teachers who choose whether they want to use these problems in their teaching or not. At the beginning of the project, the focus was more on the pupils and their learning about problem-solving, the participating teachers were not tested or interviewed at the start

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