| dc.description.abstract | The purpose of this study is to describe the teaching process of integrating math history into math lessons, to investigate students’ perception and thinking towards the integration of math history into math lessons and to explore teachers’ reflection and growth of teaching experiences. The action research is conducted in the current paper. I have observed and recorded my two eighth-grade classes for one semester. Students’ suggestions and feedback are collected. The teacher’s personal diary is kept to record the interview data from students. I have held several meetings with my research partners to discuss all data I collected. In each teaching, I keep rethinking my teaching and discussing with my research partners in a “reflective teaching” process where teachers’ teaching expertise should be gradually developed to improve junior high school students’ math learning attitude and comprehension process.
In the research process, math history teachings are demonstrated three times. It is found that the curriculum of teaching math history can help promote positive attitude towards math learning. “Pythagoras’’ Theorem” is the unit of the first math history teaching and materials are presented to eighth graders via cooperative teaching. The result indicates that students have positive attitude towards the materials of math history and indirectly value the importance of team work learning. Therefore, teachers while implementing cooperative teaching should carefully group students to avoid any conflicts or arguments in students’ cooperation, which might further affect students’ willingness to learn. The unit of the second math history teaching is “prime number”, which is appropriate for seventh graders not eighth graders. The unit is rather not suitable for eighth graders due to research convenience. Teachers should adhere to the educational conscience and carefully think about each teaching unit’s appropriateness. The unit of the third math history teaching is “equation”. Relevant materials are presented via technology facility. In the teaching process, several reflections and discussions are conducted to improve next class’s teaching method after each class’s teaching implementation. In the final teaching, the teaching method has become well-designed and left nothing to be desired. Meanwhile, technology facility can provide teaching materials in multiple ways including words, image, voice and animation to increase students’ learning interests and promote learning motivation.
Besides the description of “math history” teaching process, the situation of teacher himself is clearly depicted. Every teacher has their own stories including the location to get along with colleagues, the process to interact with students, other influences from the family of origin and so on. Each variable influences teachers’ teaching philosophy and thoughts. Hence, the way teachers rethink themselves is the key to understanding themselves. Only by understanding themselves can teachers design teaching modes based on their own characteristics and develop appropriate teaching ideas.
In the process of teaching implementation, teachers actually have no scheduled methods or steps to teach. Teaching ideas and energy should appear ubiquitously. In different classes, teachers should care about their students’ learning needs and characteristics from different classes. Teachers should review their teaching process through self-reflection and discussion with research peers to design teaching plans suitable for different classes and cater for different students’ learning needs. Therefore, to allow greater flexibility is the key to teaching improvement. Secondly, besides students’ feedback, the student-teacher interaction to increase students’ growth and a sense of achievement from improvement are also key factors to keep teachers’ teaching passion.
| en_US |