Investigating the changes in teachers' pedagogical practices through the use of the Mathematics Reasoning Heuristic (MRH) approach

Abstract

This study examines the pedagogical differences when three teachers change their practices from traditional teaching to student-centered practices. The student-centered approach adopted-the Mathematics Reasoning Heuristic (MRH) approach-was developed by the researcher. A professional development program was implemented over one semester where the MRH approach was initially modeled for teachers before the three teachers implementing the approach. The level of student-centered teaching in the MRH classes varied as a result of the feedback provided by the researcher, while the teachers' traditional-style teaching level stayed the same. The patterns of the change for all three teachers, with different scales, were similar; that is, their MRH teaching stayed at the level of their control teaching for a while and began to move up depending on the pedagogical area on which they put emphasis. Their questioning was the first move to change, yet it was not aligned with other areas at the beginning. However, variations existed in the differences between the teachers' control and MRH instructions.