Math Teachers’ Beliefs, Practices, and Belief Change in Implementing Problem Based Learning in Qatari Primary Governmental School

Abstract

This study explored math teachers' beliefs regarding their roles, practices and perceived change in implementing Problem-Based Learning in Qatar's primary government schools. Multiple sources of qualitative data were generated including metaphors, lesson plans and interviews with seventeen math teachers. Although teachers considered PBL as an effective method benefiting student learning and they demonstrated progress in changing their beliefs moving from subject to didactic dimension through PBL implementation, their practices remained partially aligned with their perceived belief changes. This discrepancy could be attributed to several encountered challenges, including teachers' insecurity and lack of confidence, difficulty in facilitating student collaboration, structural constraints, additional workload, and the lack of school and peer support. Results suggest the need for different types of "problems" and approaches such as more direct instruction, and higher feasibility in teachers' autonomy when implementing PBL in primary education.

Active learning engagement in teacher preparation programmes - A comparative study from Qatar, Lebanon and China

“…While participants actively engaged in PBL activities, they also experienced insecurity, which created a certain degree of fear from innovative teaching practices, and consequently their preference for lecture-based methods. A similar dilemma was also reported by teachers in Qatari governmental schools when they implemented PBL in mathematics classroomswhile they were enthusiastic to implement the new method, they also felt insecure about the reactions from students and from their colleagues (Al Said, Du, ALKhatib, Romanowski, & Barham, 2019). These results underscore the socio-cultural context where innovative teaching methods begin to substitute the more traditional practices, and which may present challenges that further influence students' preferences (Zhao, Zhang, & Du, 2017;Zhao & Zheng, 2014).…”

Education transferring and decentralized reforms: The case of Qatar

“…Therefore, they only saw the change initiative as a classroom strategy requiring them to follow the recipe book, instead of seeing the its potential educational benefits (Du, Chaaban, and AlMabrd, 2019). From the MoEHE's perspective, this top-down process may increase the efficiency of implementation; nevertheless, the lack of understanding, motivation, and skills by the implementers, in this case teachers, became obstacles to realizing the governmental wishes and made the reform less effective than expected (Adelman and Taylor 2007;Al Said et al 2019). It also made the process a form of deconcentration instead of the desired delegation.…”

Engineering Students’ Approaches to Learning and Views on Collaboration: How do both Evolve in a PBL Environment and What are their Contributing and Constraining Factors?

“…Overall curriculum standards instructors must follow while implementing PBL can be seen as a limitation since these will affect the amount of time they can spend providing the necessary support to the students (Al Said, Du, ALKhatib, Romanowski, & Barham, 2019). Thus, while PBL is increasingly being implemented at a course level, challenges arise from an institutional perspective, such as how to adjust assessment policy to constructively align with the PBL objectives (Biggs & Tang, 2011), how to provide facilities for such a learning environment (i.e., classrooms, materials, and maintaining balance with other courses), and how to maintain a balance between reaching the required outcome of the curriculum and the content outcome of the project while facilitating the necessary skills to maximize learning in PBL (Hmelo-Silver & Barrows, 2006).…”