Comparison Research On The Mathematics Class Questioning Of Two Grade Six Teachers, An Experienced Teacher And A Brand-new Teacher

Our forefathers have said "learning starts from thinking, thinking from question." In class, a good question posed by teacher, like "Prompted fury waves", can arouse students’ curiosity and stimulate thinking. Mathematics is the gym of thinking. Students have to think to understand it. So the main object of teachers’ questioning is to stimulate students’thinking when teaching math. Nowadays, teachers’ questioning is attracting more and more attention and play an important role in teaching and learning. However, in reality, there’re many problems existing in math teachers’ questioning such as too many arbitrary and closing questions and lack of the words of operation of thinking in questions. To solve these practical problems in math teachers’ questioning, it’s necessary to have an empirical study on it.This dissertation is a comparative study on teachers’ questioning between an experienced math teacher and a novice math teacher in6th grade middle school in Shanghai. Firstly, observe and tape-record two teachers’five mathematical lessons. Secondly, classify two teachers’questions based on A Revision of Blooms’taxonomy of educational objectives. Thirdly, interview two teachers and ask questions about their thoughts on questioning, preparation and rethink of questioning and so on. Then, after synthesis of classroom observation and interview, draw conclusions on the features and flaws of two teachers’questioning. Finally, provide suggestions for math teacher to improve the quality of their questioning in class according to 《Shanghai primary and middle school mathematics curriculum standards (draft)))This dissertation includes four parts.Part One:Introduction. This part briefly gives the background, the value, the questions, the objects, the methods of the research. In the methods, it uses the observation, the interview, and the analysis-based-situation in qualitative research.Part Two:Research status of the questioning research in mathematical classroom. This part finds the past researches lay emphasis on the functions, the classification, the technique of questioning. Those are essential to recognize questioning in class. However, The characteristics of math and grade is not obvious. Some researches study teachers’questioning off the situation which cannot analyze teachers’questioning deeply and comprehensively.Part Three:Observation, interview and analysis to the questioning in math class. The interviewees were not told what was to be observed in the class before the interview. Firstly, observe and tape-record two teachers’five mathematical lessons. Secondly, classify two teachers’ questions based on A Revision of Blooms’taxonomy of educational objectives. In the quantitative research, it is found that the times of questioning in the novice teacher class is about37while the times of questioning in the experienced teacher class is about30. In the qualitative research, it is found that the experienced teacher’s questioning stress on the connection of prior knowledge and new knowledge and essence of knowledge while the novice teacher’s questioning place an emphasis on metacognitive knowledge but includes too many arbitrary and closing questions. In the analysis to the interview, it includes three points:the basic view, the deeply interviewing, teachers’response. The deeply interviewing includes four points: objective of a lesson, preparation of questioning, reflection on students’ operation of thinking in answering and the relation among questions.After a comparison research on two teachers’questioning observation and interview, there are some conclusions including four points:1. The kind of teacher’s questioning is dependent on teacher’s understanding of the obiectives and points of a lesson.2. The common characteristics of two teachers’ questioning:stress on knowledge but less attention given to students’ operation of thinking.3. The characteristics of the experienced teacher’s questioning:stress on the connection of prior knowledge and new knowledge and essence of knowledge and moral education in questioning.The characteristics of the novice teacher’s questioning: an emphasis on metacognitive knowledge but includes too many arbitrary and closing questions.4. The questions with higher order thinking skill do not always stimulate students’ thinking effectively.Part Four:Suggestions and thinking of math teacher’s questioning in6th grade class. This part provides three suggestions for math teacher to improve the quality of their questioning in class according to 《Shanghai primary and middle school mathematics curriculum standards (draft)》1. Design questions before class and reflect questioning during and after class.2. Questioning for stimulating students’ thinking.3. Pay an attention to questioning educational value besides mathematical knowledge.Teachers should pay more attention to their classroom questioning. The questions which can stimulate students’ thinking and help students to reflect their answers can really push students to think and learn.