Hva kjennetegner matematikkundervisningen i to 8.klasser? : En kvalitativ studie av to matematikklærere i 8.klasse og deres synspunkter på egen undervisning og klasse

Abstract

This study is titled «What characterizes the maths teaching in two classes from the 8th grade”. It is a qualitative study of two maths teachers in the 8th grade and their views on their own teaching and class. The purpose of this study is two investigate how these two teachers organize their lessons so that their pupils can learn new and important concepts in mathematics. I will look at how they plan their lessons, what tasks do they choose, how they start their lessons, to what degree they use several examples, several representations and several strategies. I will also view how they vary their lessons and which talk moves they use in their hours. The goal is that the class, together, develop instructional dialogues of mathematical concepts. Furthermore, I will investigate what role the class environment plays when it comes to teaching. I have collected data by interviewing the two teachers in the 8th grade. On top of that I have collected empirical data by observing their classes. While observing 3-4 hours in each class over a period of two months, I wrote down field notes.The framework uses in this study is Leinhardt & Steele’s article: “Seeing the Complexity of Standing to the Side: Instructional Dialogues” (2005). They have conducted research into the teachings of Lambert in a 5 grade class in the USA. Lambert is a professor and works with teacher education and in this article her unique and exemplary teaching is described. Also, theory regarding recommended talk moves and practices, along with theory about challenges in mathematics teaching, will be reviewed.The results show that one of the teachers can concentrate on subject matter during his lesson preparations because he has an easy class to manage. He uses a varied collection of tasks, several representations and most of the time a shift in scene in each of the observed hours. He often starts the hour by teaching on the blackboard or smartboard. His experiences with pupils discussing in pairs are varied, he also wants to create heterogenic groups when his pupils are cooperating. He “guides” his pupils on their way towards an instructional dialogue of the order of operations by, among other things, using an element of competition.The other teacher spends a lot of time planning his teaching, he considers how his pupils can learn, what he has done previously and what has worked. He starts almost all of his maths lessons with a slide on the smartboard where, among other messages you can read, “EVERYONE can learn maths” and “Mathematics is patterns, representations, conjectures and seeing what happens”. He uses a varied collection of tasks, often presented on the smartboard. He “guides” his pupils on their way towards an instructional dialogue of ratios by using different tasks related to the pupils’ everyday life. His class, however, has challenges related to the class environment. He therefore claims that they must prioritize working on the social element of lessons and how pupils should behave towards each other.