Sunday, 8 September 2013

TEACHING STYLES IN THEMATIC MATHEMATICS

Generally speaking, the literature reveals that teachers enact three teaching styles when dealing with a thematic unit (Blum, 1991; Galbraith, Blum, & Huntley, 1998; Handal, 2000; White & Hastings, 2000). In the first style, the teacher intends to reach the mathematical content objectives of a particular thematic unit or lesson through an entirely content based lesson and consequently no applications of mathematics are presented in class. In this form, rote learning and drill are the predominant approach to learning. 


The second teaching style is characterised by applications of mathematics but in a restricted dimension. Typically, the teacher begins the lesson with the introduction of a mathematical concept and later presents applications of mathematics as a way to practice the already taught mathematical concept. Applications of mathematics in this second style are not related to each other and are used not to elicit mathematical ideas from a real life situation but as a way to justify the applicational goals of a thematic unit. This style represents the most basic form of teaching mathematics thematically since in a theme all applications are to be related to each other and must revolve around a central idea (Freeman & Sokoloff, 1996).


 In the third teaching style, the teacher is engaged with mathematical modelling. This is thought to be the most difficult and complex style of  teaching thematically (Blum, 1991; Galbraith et al., 1998; Handal, 2000; White & Hastings, 2000). A teacher operating in this style typically begins from a real-life situation involving experiential and hands-on activities that eventually lead to the formalization of the mathematical concept involved. Presented as discrete "styles", no evidence suggests how prevalent each style is or if one is more effective.


The study reported here is part of a larger investigation concerned with the beliefs and practices of secondary mathematics teachers who were required to teach mathematics thematically. The findings reported in this paper deal only with the research component concerned with the teaching styles utilised by these teachers. More specifically, the study intended to identify which factors determine teachers’ choice of instructional styles in the teaching of mathematics thematically and whether the styles chosen were in accordance with those required by curriculum documents.

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