Intellectual challenge in mathematics teaching in lower secondary schools

• Published in: Tímarit um uppeldi og menntun
• Main Authors: Sigurjónsson, Jóhann Örn, Gísladóttir, Berglind
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: Icelandic
• Published: Menntavísindasvið Háskóla Íslands 2020
• Subjects: mathematics education; intellectual challenge; teaching quality; video-based studies; analytical thinking; stærðfræðimenntun; vitsmunaleg áskorun; gæði kennslu; myndbandsrannsóknir; greinandi hugsun; Örn; Plato; Iceland
• Online Access: https://ojs.hi.is/tuuom/article/view/3281; https://doi.org/10.24270/tuuom.2020.29.8

The aim of this study was to assess the level of intellectual challenge offered to students in lower secondary mathematics in Iceland as it appears in mathematical tasks and in the enactment of tasks in the classroom. The national curriculum explicitly states that students should learn to explain their thoughts to others and engage with mathematical tasks in which both critical and analytical thinking is required (Mennta- og menningarmálaráðuneytið, 2012 (Ministry of Education, Science and Culture). Previous research has shown that teachers generally have a positive view towards cognitively demanding tasks, but such tasks are scarce in Icelandic textbooks (Jóhann Örn Sigurjónsson & Jónína Vala Kristinsdóttir, 2018). How teachers enact tasks in the classroom with the aim of developing students’ competency in critical and creative thinking has not been the object of much study in Iceland.Ten Icelandic lower secondary schools participated in the study. Schools were purposefully chosen with the aim of establishing heterogeneity of the sample and included different school types in terms of location, size, and students´ background. Three to four consecutive mathematics lessons were video recorded in 8th grade in each school, in total 34 lessons. Two frameworks were used to analyse the data. The Protocol for Language Arts Teaching Observations (PLATO) was used to analyse the level of intellectual challenge offered to students in the classroom on a 4-point scale in 15 minute segments (Bell et al., 2019; Grossman, 2019). The Task Analysis Guide (TAG), was used to analyse whether the solution of mathematical tasks required analytical thinking (Stein et al., 2009).For the study 144 mathematical tasks were analysed. The tasks were identified from both the videos and lesson plans. Findings showed that the majority of tasks involved procedures without connections to underlying mathematical concepts, or 64%. The tasks that involved procedures with connections counted 33% and only four tasks were in the highest category and ...