Elementary and Secondary School Teachers' Perspectives of Effective Mathematics Teaching

Abstract

This paper compares and contrasts the perspectives of effective mathematics teaching by 135 elementary school teachers, 132 middle school teachers, and 124 high school teachers using a questionnaire in South Korea. All groups of teachers chose in common the teaching and learning strand as the most important for effective mathematics instruction. However, elementary school teachers placed greater importance on the curriculum and content strand than their counterparts did. Elementary school teachers tended to agree more upon the 48 items related to good mathematics teaching than their counterparts did. The similarities and differences among the groups of teachers are expected to provoke discussion of what constitutes high-quality mathematics instruction and how such perspectives may be situated in the socio-cultural context.