What Matters for His Students: Quality Teaching From the Classroom of a Hong Kong Mathematics Teacher

Abstract

Despite the directive character of the teaching approach in Hong Kong, the teacher’s role has been shown to extend beyond one-way exposition to the strategic orchestration of the various events in the class. This presentation reports a study of a competent mathematics teacher in Hong Kong, based on the analysis of teacher interviews and lesson video material. In particular, the scaffolding by the teacher contributing to the students’ construction of mathematical knowledge was examined. A useful metaphor for the knowledge construction taking place in the classroom is that of scaffolding. In this paper, we conceptualise scaffolding as follows: “With the right word or question or other device a teacher may put in place the scaffolding that will allow new knowledge to be constructed, incomplete or wrong concepts to be challenged or corrected, or forgotten knowledge to be recalled. This scaffolding stimulates learner activity in the zone of proximal development.” (Holton & Clarke, 2006, p.129). Scaffolding, therefore, can take place in any form or style of instruction, directive teaching or collaborative learning, depending on the teacher’s pedagogical traditions, beliefs and practice. The source of data was one classroom from the Hong Kong component of the Learner’s Perspective Study (Clarke, 2006) in which a sequence or 18 eighth-grade lessons were recorded. The teacher had more than twenty years of experience in both primary and secondary mathematics teaching. He was active in teaching, curriculum development and research activities. Local mathematics educators, his school principal, colleagues and students recommended him as a very good teacher. The school was of average standard within the Hong Kong school system. Post-lesson video-stimulated teacher and student interviews identified those classroom episodes seen as important by the teacher and the students. These episodes were characterised by a form of “expert scaffolding” (Holton & Clarke, 2006), where the teacher played the role of expert, orchestrating classroom discourse with specific purposes in mind: – Developing new knowledge from existing knowledge – Developing concepts and skills with elaborative detail – Developing mathematical habits – An awareness of the difficult parts of the topic – Catering for the needs of the students As a result of the consistent good performance of the Hong Kong students in international comparative studies such as TIMSS, there has been much interest in Asian teaching. Despite the directive character of the teaching approach in Hong Kong, the teacher’s role can be seen to extend beyond one-way exposition to orchestrating the various events in the class and the creation of a very interactive classroom milieu (Mok and Morris, 2001). The findings of this case study captured some features and values characteristic of quality teaching in one Hong Kong classroom that may extend Western conceptions of a competent teacher. References Holton, D., & Clarke, D. (2006). Scaffolding and Metacognition. International Journal of Mathematical Education in Science and Technology, 37(2), 127–143. Mok, I.A.C., & Morris, P., (2001). The Metamorphosis of the 'Virtuoso': Pedagogic patterns in Hong Kong primary mathematics classrooms. Teaching and Teacher Education: An International Journal of Research and Studies, 17(4), 455-468.