En studie av tilpasset opplæring i matematikk ved GLU 1-7

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate how teacher education programmes are designed to provide the students with sufficient prerequisites to adapt their teaching for their own pupils when they have graduated as mathematics teachers. By graduated mathematics teachers, I mean the students who do not specialize in mathematics, but complete the Mathematics 1 course, which gives them the 30 compulsory credits in the subject. With the limitations of this thesis, I have chosen to consider a two-part research question: What are the study plans saying about adapted education for high and low achieving pupils in Mathematics 1 at GLU 1-7, and what reflections do teacher educators have about adapted education? The theory I use works as support for my research project, and the thesis is characterized by principles from «grounded theory». In the following I present the development of teacher education programmes and how didactics of mathematics has grown to become an increasingly important part of education. Furthermore, today's primary school teacher education is presented for 1st to 7th grade, where present a review of recent research that deals with what makes education good and meaningful, as well as what the national guidelines say about the content of Mathematics 1. The empirical material consists of two parts, where I have conducted document analysis of subject plans, and also interviewed eight lecturers in Mathematics 1 at GLU 1-7. The document analysis consists of comparing the subject plans of relevant subjects for elementary school teacher education (1st to 7th grade). The goal here is to see what they incorporate of adapted education for high and low achieving students. Interview with lecturers from different departments in Norway gives me a clearer and broader insight into what the focus is with them. The results of the document analysis show that, although the subject plans largely contain many of the same objectives as presented in the national guidelines for GLU 1-7, there are a number of differences in the content of adapted education. Interviews with teacher educators show the same; that there are big differences in the focus they have on adapted education, some of which have this as their own module, while others do not mention the term for their students.