Utvikling av inquiry-basert undervising i matematikk : Kvalitative erfaringar frå eit intensivt og forskingsbasert utviklingsprosjekt med to lærarar i den vidaregåande opplæringa
Master thesis
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http://hdl.handle.net/11250/2455738Utgivelsesdato
2017Metadata
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Sammendrag
Inquiry-based teaching is characterized by engaging students in inquiry, collaboration and disussions
on the basis of rich, perhaps realistic, problems with the teacher acting as moderator
or coach. In recent years, this type of teaching has gained increasing attention within Norwegian
mathematics education and is a focus area for influential contributors. Since these ideas are
remote for many mathematics classrooms, the object of this thesis is to shed light on teachers’
(and students’) process of developing new practices in accordance with this ideal. I ask: What
developments, challenges and key factors affect this process, and how are they connected?
To gain insight into this, a short term development program was initiated in collaboration
with two upper secondary school teachers. Over a period of three weeks, the teachers conducted
five inquiry-based teaching sequences in contrast to their existing practice where the students
mainly watched video lessons and solved tasks individually. The description of this program
can be summarized in five key features: The implementation (a) occurred of a short, coherent
period of time and was based on (b) research-based mentoring and (c) research-based resources
and was (d) closely linked to practive and (e) reflection in collaboration.
Simultaneously a qualitative study was carried out with this development program as case.
Data was mainly gathered by interviewing the teachers, carrying out a focus group with four
students and observing both lessons and planing meetings. Inspired by grounded theory and
thematic analysis, the data was coded and categorized in light of a twofolded theoretical framework.
Inquiry-based mathematics teaching is understood as a perspective on teaching (Wells,
1999) with several key characteristics (Maaß & Reitz-Koncebovski, 2013), while professional
development is conceptualized as the joint development in beliefs, knowledge and practice.
Additionally the frameworks of Gueudet and Trouche (2012) and Clarke and Hollingsworth
(2002), documental genesis and the change environment respectively, are used to analyze the
situation, in combination with existing research on the development of inquiry.
This study confirms that inquiry-based mathematics teaching is demanding for both teachers
and students, and most of the challenges posed by this data are also documented in existing research.
That being said, this study also distinguishes itself from similar projects by demonstrating
significant progress in terms of beliefs, knowledge and practice among the teachers and the
studens. The most outstanding finding was the observation that many student groups developed
inquiry and communication patters largly in complieance with the ideal. The same growth was
also visible for the plenary talks and the teachers’ interactions with the students, but to a lesser
extent. All cases indicated increased knowledge and positive beliefs and appeard to be consequences
of key factors such as the five features, with emphasis on the last two, as well as the
devotion of the teachers and the commitment by the students. Although the results advocate the
demanding and intricate nature of inquiry-based mathematics teaching, they also demonstrate
that significant development is possible under complex conditions. Even though several characteristics
of the context imply generalization to other cases, other favorable qualities of the
situation indicate that it would be unreasonable to expect all the same outcomes in less fortunate
occasions.
Beskrivelse
Masteroppgave matematikkdidaktikk MA502 – Universitetet i Agder 2017