Teacher behaviors that support and inhibit high level thinking in Lebanese elementary mathematics classrooms : an indepth case study of five lessons

النوع : Mémoire

The goal of this study was to investigate which clusters of teacher behaviors ar e important for maintaining high level thinking (HLT) in Lebanese mathematics cl assrooms and to understand how these behaviors influence the level of mathematic al thinking that students engage in. Five cases of lessons were analyzed quantit atively to identify the consistency and frequency of 34 teacher behaviors and di stinguish each of the cases. Then based on these profiles some clusters of teach er behaviors were further analyzed quantitatively by examining teacher-student i nteractions to understand how teachers are able to maintain high level thinking. Three clusters of teacher behaviors were analyzed: modeling of high level think ing, teacher shaping of communication and teacher emphasizing meaning and unders tanding. Qualitative analysis showed that these three clusters are important for maintaining high level thinking. Also, within these clusters some behaviors wer e associated with high level thinking more than the others. These are: students modeling of high level thinking, teachers' call for explanations, teachers' pres sing for good and elaborate explanations and teachers' asking of students to dra w conceptual connections. An additional teacher behavior, reaction to errors, wa s analyzed independently from the 34 teacher behaviors. Reactions to errors also play a role in maintaining high level thinking especial ly when the teacher insists on the student who made the error to rethink and cor rect the error.