Mathematics Education Research Journal Pub Date : 2021-02-17 , DOI: 10.1007/s13394-021-00372-z James Russo , Janette Bobis , Ann Downton , Maggie Feng , Sally Hughes , Sharyn Livy , Melody McCormick , Peter Sullivan
Despite teacher enjoyment of teaching being associated with a range of benefits for teachers and their students, little research exploring the characteristics of teachers who enjoy teaching mathematics exists. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with ten teachers who scored in the top third in terms of their enjoyment of teaching mathematics from a sample of 118 generalist, early-year primary school teachers. Thematic analysis of interview data revealed that negative-to-positive turning point experiences were commonplace amongst high-enjoyment primary teachers, but so too were reports of consistently positive feelings towards mathematics throughout their entire lives. While most articulated a passion for teaching mathematics, all teachers considered instances when students experienced ‘light bulb’ moments in their mathematical understanding that made a mathematics lesson enjoyable to teach. An important implication of our research is that one need not be a ‘maths person’ to come to love teaching mathematics. Rather, positive experiences in one’s pre-service teacher education, or in-service teacher professional learning, have the potential to transform one’s attitude towards teaching mathematics.
中文翻译:
小学数学高学历教师的特点
尽管教师对教学的享受与对教师及其学生的好处有关,但很少有研究探索喜欢数学教学的教师的特征。半结构化访谈对十位教师进行了半结构化访谈,他们从118位通才,初等小学教师的样本中在数学教学方面的得分方面名列前三。对访谈数据的主题分析表明,在高学历的小学教师中,负到正的转折点经历是司空见惯的,但在他们的整个一生中,对数学始终如一的积极感觉的报道也是如此。虽然大多数人都表达了对数学教学的热情,所有的老师都考虑了学生在数学理解中经历“灯泡”时刻的实例,这使数学课教学变得愉快。我们研究的一个重要含义是,不必热衷于数学教学的“数学家”。相反,在职前教师教育或在职教师专业学习方面的积极经验有可能改变人们对数学教学的态度。