Teachers’ teaching practices and beliefs regarding context-based tasks and their relation with students’ difficulties in solving these tasks

Abstract

In this study, we investigated teachers' teaching practices and their underlying beliefs regarding context-based tasks to find a possible explanation for students' difficulties with these tasks. The research started by surveying 27 Junior High School teachers from seven schools in Indonesia through a written questionnaire. Then, to further examine teachers' teaching practices related to context-based tasks, four teachers were observed and video recorded in two mathematics lessons in which they were asked to deal with context-based tasks. The questionnaire data revealed that the teachers had a tendency toward a view on teaching and learning mathematics which includes encouraging students to be actively involved in solving problems in various contexts. Although this finding suggests that the teachers may offer opportunities to learn context-based tasks to students, the questionnaire data also revealed that the teachers saw context-based tasks as plain word problems. Furthermore, the observations disclosed that their teaching was mainly teacher-centered and directive, which is not considered to be supportive for learning to solve context-based tasks. Combining the findings of this study with the results from our earlier study on Indonesian students' errors when solving context-based tasks, we found a relationship between how Indonesian teachers teach context-based tasks and the errors Indonesian students make in solving these tasks. These findings support the conclusion that insufficient opportunity-to-learn to solve context-based tasks offered by teachers is a possible explanation for students' difficulties in solving these tasks.Math Ed Res J (2015) 27:637-662 DOI 10.1007/s13394-015-0157-

The consistency between professed teaching practices and assessment practices: A case in mathematics class

“…Instrumental teaching practices are very identical to learning based on results rather than process, so learning that is relevant to the context of students is often ignored. These findings strengthen previous studies about the teaching practices of Indonesian mathematics teachers in class (Purnomo, Suryadi, & Darwis, 2016;Wijaya, van den Heuvel-Panhuizen, & Doorman, 2015), in which teacher practices are more dominated by traditional practices. Through class observations, Wijaya found that practices of mathematics teachers, concerning how contextbased tasks are taught, leaned more toward a directive teaching approach.…”

“…In their study, Wijaya, van den Heuvel-Panhuizen, and Doorman (2015) have examined the teaching practices of junior secondary mathematics teachers by use of observations, videos, and self-reports. However, this research only focused on teaching practices related to context-based mathematics learning.…”

Opportunity-to-Learn to Solve Context-based Mathematics Tasks and Students’ Performance in Solving these Tasks – Lessons from Indonesia

“…The data about teachers' teaching practice were collected through a written questionnaire and classroom observations (see Wijaya, Van den Heuvel-Panhuizen, & Doorman, 2015b). The questionnaire focused on the characteristics of context-based tasks used by teachers in their teaching practices.…”

International Reflections on the Netherlands Didactics of Mathematics

“…The second dimension of opportunity-to-learn investigated in the CoMTI project was teachers' teaching practices. For this dimension Wijaya, Van den Heuvel-Panhuizen, and Doorman (2015b) found that the way teachers taught context-based tasks also did not provide sufficient opportunities for students to learn to solve context-based tasks. The teachers tended to use a directive teaching approach in which they tell the students what a context-based task is about, translate the task into a mathematical problem, and explain what mathematical procedure to carry out.…”