Mathematics teachers’ knowledge and skills about questioning in the context of modeling activities

Abstract

Asking effective questions has been considered to be one of the most important indicators of good teaching since questioning is an important instructional tool and the ability to ask effective questions requires sophisticated pedagogical reasoning. Teachers can facilitate students’ higher-level thinking through effective questions. However, teachers’ utilization of effective and higher-level questions is usually limited in traditional settings. The goal of this study is to investigate how secondary mathematics teachers’ knowledge and skills of questioning change when they are engaged in professional development activities based on the modeling perspective. The program included five cycles each of which lasted a month. Each cycle consisted of meetings before and after the implementation of a model-eliciting activity and its implementation. The results showed that the professional development program had a positive effect on teachers’ ability to ask qualitatively different questions in order to move students’ thinking forward.

Keywords:

• Teacher knowledge
• questioning
• professional development
• mathematics education
• mathematical modeling

Acknowledgements

This paper is based on the doctoral dissertation of the first author under the supervision of the second author entitled ‘An Investigation of In-service Secondary Mathematics Teachers’ Evolving Knowledge through Professional Development Activities based on Modeling Perspective’.