The Great Mathematics Teacher (Guru Matematika Hebat)

THE IMPORTANT POINTS ON THE TEACHING PRINCIPLE FOR SCHOOL MATHEMATICS

By

MOHAMMAD ASIKIN*

Effective Mathematics Teaching Requires Understanding What Students Know And Need To Learn And Then Challenging And Supporting Them To Learn It Well

1. Teachers must know and understand deeply the mathematics they are teaching.
2. Teachers must be able to draw on that knowledge with flexibility in their teaching tasks.
3. Teachers need to understand and committed to their students as learners mathematics and as human beings and be skillfull in choosing from and using a variety of pedagogical and assesment strategies.
4. Teachers must have frequent and ample opportunities and resources to enhance and refresh their knowledge.

Effective Teaching Requires Knowing And Understanding Mathematics, Students As Learners, And Pedagogical Strategies

1. Teachers need several different kinds of mathematical knowledges about the whole domain.
2. Teachers must know and understand deeply and flexible knowledge about curriculum goals.
3. Teachers must understand deeply and flexible knowledge about the important ideas that are central to their grade levels.
4. Teachers must know and understand knowledge about the challenges students.
5. Teachers must know and understand knwledge about how ideas can be represented to each them effectively.
6. Teachers must know and understand knowledge about how students’   understanding can be assessed.
7. Teachers make curricular judgements.
8. Teachers must be respond to student’s questions.
9. Teachers must be look ahead to where  concepts are leading and plan accordingly.
10. Teachers must know pedagogical knowledge to understand how students learn mathematics.
11. Teachers must know pedagogical knowledge to know a range of different teaching techniques and instructional materials, and organize and manage the classroom.
12. Teachers need to understand the big ideas of mathematics and be able to represent mathematics as a coherent and connected enterprise.
13. Teachers need to know the ideas with which students often have difficulty and ways to help bridge common misunderstandings.
14. Teachers must understand what their students already know.
15. Effective teachers make shape student’s mathematical dispositions and create rich setting for learning.
16. Effective teachers know how to ask questions and plan lesson thar reveal students’ prior knowledge.
17. Effective teachers can then design experience and lessons that respond ro and build on this knowledge.
18. Effective teachers selecting and using suitable curricular materials.
19. Effective teachers using appropriate instructional tools and techiques.
20. Effective teachers engaging in reflective practice and continuous self-improvement are actions good teachers take every day.
21. Teachers must be teaching mathematics well involves creating, enriching, maintaining and adapting instruction to move toward mathematical goals, capture and sustain interest, and engage students in building mathematical understanding.

Effective Teaching Requires A Challenging And Supportive Classroom Learning Environment

1.       Teachers establish and nurture an environment conductive to learning mathematics through the decisions they make.

2.       Teachers must can the conversations they orchestrate.

3.       Teachers must can the physical setting they create.

4.       Teachers’ actions are encourage students to think, question, solve problems, and discuss their ideas, strategies, and solutions.

5.       The teacher is responsile for creating an intellectual environment where serious mathematical thinking is the norm.

6.       Teachers creating an environment that fosters these kinds of activities is essential.

7.       Teachers must decide what aspects of a task to highlight.

8.       Teachers must know how to organize and orchestrate the work of the students.

9.       Teaches must know what questions to ask to challenge those with varied level of expertise.

10.   Teachers must know how to support students without taking over the process of thinking for them and thus eliminating the challenge.

Effective Teaching Requires Continually Seeking Improvement

1.       Teachers must motivate student to engage in mathematical thinking and reasoning.

2.       Teachers must provide learning opportunities that challenge students at all levels of understanding.

3.       Teachers strive for learning about about mathematics and pedagogy.

4.       Teachers strive for benefiting from interactions with students and colleagues.

5.       Teachers strive for engaging in ongoing professional development and self-reflection.

6.       Teachers must be able to analyze what they and their students are doing and consider how those actions are affecting student’s learning.

7.       Teachers should monitor sudent’s capacity and inclination to analyze situation, frame and solve problem, and make sense of mathematical concepts and procedures.

8.       The work and time of teachers must be structured to allow and support professional development that will benefit them and their students.

Reference

National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. 2000. Principles and  Standards for School Mathematics. Reston: NCTM.

*) He's my teacher in UNNES, Semarang, INDONESIA