Abstract
In this study, we aimed to examine mathematics teachers’ daily lesson plans and associated practices and thinking in lesson plan development. By focusing on teachers’ preparation for teaching fraction division, we collected and analyzed a sequence of four lesson plans from each of six mathematics teachers in six different elementary schools in China. Interviews with these teachers were also analyzed to support the lesson plan analysis and reveal teachers’ thinking behind their practices. The results show that Chinese teachers placed a great consideration on several aspects of lesson planning, including content, process, and their students’ learning. Teachers’ lesson plans were similar in terms of some broad features, but differed in details and specific approaches used. While the textbook’s influence was clearly evident in these teachers’ lesson plans, lesson planning itself was an important process for Chinese teachers to transform textbook content into a script unique to different teachers and their students. Implications obtained from Chinese teachers’ lesson planning practices and their thinking are then discussed in a broad context.
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Notes
China refers to the Chinese Mainland in this article.
The elementary school curriculum normally includes Chinese, mathematics, foreign language (typically, English), physical education and health, music, drawing, moral and society, and elementary instruction in science and geography, combined with practical work experiences around the school compound. Learning of Chinese and mathematics is heavily emphasized in elementary education.
In this article, “division of fraction” and “fraction division” refer to the same content topic, and it is also abbreviated as DoF.
One teacher planned exercise and quiz for one lesson, and thus only three lesson plans were collected from that teacher.
In fact, the other two teachers who used the same textbook (i.e., T2 and T3) planned to do the same (i.e., give students exercise problems and a quiz) for the fifth lesson.
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Acknowledgments
This research was supported in part by a research grant from the Spencer Foundation to the first author. However, any opinions expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the Spencer Foundation. We would like to thank Jiansheng Bao, Yijuan Shao, Hong Jian, and Hongwei Zhu for their assistance in the process of collecting the Chinese data. We are grateful to all the participants for sharing their lesson plans and thoughts. We would also like to thank three reviewers for their thoughtful comments on a prior version of this article.
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Li, Y., Chen, X. & Kulm, G. Mathematics teachers’ practices and thinking in lesson plan development: a case of teaching fraction division. ZDM Mathematics Education 41, 717–731 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11858-009-0174-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11858-009-0174-8