Paper Presentation
room KG4 301
Prospective mathematics teachers’ pedagogical approaches in dealing with diverse classrooms
Potari, Despina, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece Farah, Maha, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece Triantafillou, Chrissavgi, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece Psycharis, Giorgos, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece
The present study aims to investigate how Prospective Teachers (PTs), who had been involved in a module on “Pedagogical approaches to mathematics and science teaching in multicultural classrooms” developed in the context of European Project (Inclusme-project.eu), tried to deal with diverse classroom activities. 19 PTs’ assignments were analysed using grounded theory techniques. The assignments were based on a task asking the PTs to identify one main challenge that mathematics teachers may face while teaching in multicultural classrooms and propose ways to deal with it in their lesson designs. The main challenges identified by the PTs concerned students’ difficulties to cope with language demands, teachers’ difficulty to evaluate students’ understanding and contributions as well as to cope with the students’ diverse cultural and mathematical backgrounds. Moreover, teachers’ and students’ stereotypic beliefs were brought up. In order to deal with these challenges, the PTs proposed many pedagogical practices concerning: the language of teaching and learning in the classroom; the integration of students’ culture in the classroom; the creation of an inclusive classroom culture and the alignment of assessment practices to students’ individual needs. Finally, all the PTs showed an awareness of the complexity of the culturally responsive teaching.
