Characteristics of high enjoyment teachers of mathematics in primary schools

Mathematics Education Research Journal - Tập 35 - Trang 1-21 - 2021
James Russo1, Janette Bobis2, Ann Downton1, Maggie Feng2, Sally Hughes1, Sharyn Livy1, Melody McCormick1, Peter Sullivan1
1Faculty of Education, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
2The University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia

Tóm tắt

Despite teacher enjoyment of teaching being associated with a range of benefits for teachers and their students, little research exploring the characteristics of teachers who enjoy teaching mathematics exists. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with ten teachers who scored in the top third in terms of their enjoyment of teaching mathematics from a sample of 118 generalist, early-year primary school teachers. Thematic analysis of interview data revealed that negative-to-positive turning point experiences were commonplace amongst high-enjoyment primary teachers, but so too were reports of consistently positive feelings towards mathematics throughout their entire lives. While most articulated a passion for teaching mathematics, all teachers considered instances when students experienced ‘light bulb’ moments in their mathematical understanding that made a mathematics lesson enjoyable to teach. An important implication of our research is that one need not be a ‘maths person’ to come to love teaching mathematics. Rather, positive experiences in one’s pre-service teacher education, or in-service teacher professional learning, have the potential to transform one’s attitude towards teaching mathematics.

Tài liệu tham khảo

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