Loughborough University
Browse
Borg Hewitt & Jones - Negotiating between learner and mathematics - copy accepted.pdf (561.13 kB)

Negotiating between learner and mathematics: a conceptual framework to analyze teacher sensitivity toward constructivism in a mathematics classroom

Download (561.13 kB)
journal contribution
posted on 2016-12-08, 14:13 authored by Philip Borg, Dave Hewitt, Ian JonesIan Jones
Context: Constructivist teachers who find themselves working within an educational system that adopts a realist epistemology, may find themselves at odds with their own beliefs when they catch themselves paying closer attention to the knowledge authorities intend them to teach rather than the knowledge being constructed by their learners. Method: In the preliminary analysis of the mathematical learning of six low-performing Year 7 boys in a Maltese secondary school, whom one of us taught during the scholastic year 2014-15, we constructed a conceptual framework which would help us analyze the extent to which he managed to be sensitive to constructivism in a typical classroom setting. We describe the development of the framework M-N-L (Mathematics-Negotiation-Learner) as a viable analytical tool to search for significant moments in the lessons in which the teacher appeared to engage in what we define as “constructivist teaching” (CT) during mathematics lessons. The development of M-N-L is part of a research program investigating the way low-performing students make mathematical sense of new notation with the help of the software Grid Algebra. Results: M-N-L was found to be an effective instrument which helped to determine the extent to which the teacher was sensitive to his own constructivist beliefs while trying to negotiate a balance between the mathematical concepts he was expected to teach and the conceptual constructions of his students. Implications: One major implication is that it is indeed possible for mathematics teachers to be sensitive to the individual constructions of their learners without losing sight of the concepts that society, represented by curriculum planners, deems necessary for students to learn. The other is that researchers in the field of education may find M-N-L a helpful tool to analyze CT during typical didactical situations established in classroom settings.

History

School

  • Science

Department

  • Mathematics Education Centre

Published in

Constructivist Foundations

Volume

12

Issue

1

Pages

59 - 69 (11)

Citation

BORG, P., HEWITT, D. and JONES, I., 2016. Negotiating between learner and mathematics: a conceptual framework to analyze teacher sensitivity toward constructivism in a mathematics classroom. Constructivist Foundations, 12 (1), pp. 59-69.

Publisher

Alexander Riegler

Version

  • AM (Accepted Manuscript)

Publisher statement

This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Acceptance date

2016-09-12

Publication date

2016-11-15

Notes

This paper was accepted for publication in the journal Constructivist Foundations and the definitive published version is available at http://constructivist.info/12/1/059.

ISSN

1782-348X

Language

  • en

Usage metrics

    Loughborough Publications

    Categories

    No categories selected

    Exports

    RefWorks
    BibTeX
    Ref. manager
    Endnote
    DataCite
    NLM
    DC