Which Teacher, Which Example Type?

Authors

Keywords:

Beliefs about learning and teaching mathematics,, example types,, teacher roles

Abstract

This study aims to examine the roles that secondary education mathematics teachers adopted in the teaching process and the example types they use in this process. The study, in which the case study approach was employed, was carried out with four mathematics teachers. Semi-structured interviews were conducted to determine teachers' beliefs about learning and teaching mathematics; each teacher's one-year education-training process was observed to depict these beliefs' reflections in the classroom, determine their roles, and identify the example types they used during the lessons. The example types used were analyzed according to the example classification developed by Alkan (2016). The framework created by Ernest (1991) was used in the analysis of teachers' roles. One of the teachers participating in the study was observed to play the role of explainer, and the other three teachers adopted the role of instructor. Besides, regarding the teachers' examples used in the lessons, improving and standard examples are used more; very few non-example and extreme examples were used, and no counterexample was used. Instructor teachers were found to use standard examples in their explanations throughout the lesson frequently. The teacher who adopted the explainer role used improving examples more than standard examples. Besides, explainer teacher uses more non-examples than instructor teachers. It is recommended to provide in-service training on teachers' beliefs about learning and teaching mathematics and examine teachers' roles and the example types used in these roles in detail in this training.

Published

2021-04-30

How to Cite

Alkan, S., & Güven, B. (2021). Which Teacher, Which Example Type?. Turkish Journal of Mathematics Education, 2(1), 31–56. Retrieved from https://tujme.org/index.php/tujme/article/view/21

Issue

Section

Articles