Influence of school memories on practicing mathematics teachers’ teaching of algebra

Abstract

Many teachers enter the teaching profession with a huge repertoire of memories about their schooling experience. As students, they spent around 15 years in school observing teachers and interacting with them. This leave them with some ideas about what teaching is and make some believe that they know how to teach, what works and what doesn’t work in teaching, since they were once students. Research on memories suggest that autobiographical memories have a directive function in which memories of past experiences direct or guide individuals’ current and future attitudes and behaviors. The purpose of this study is to (1) describe the structure and content of practicing mathematics teachers’ autobiographical school memories of their experiences of learning algebra at school, (2) examine how these memories influence their current teaching of algebra, and (3) investigate if there is a difference in the directive function of autobiographical memories between novice and expert teachers and between teachers who have a teaching diploma and those who do not. The study follows a qualitative research design. The participants were practicing mathematics teachers who teach at the intermediate level in private schools in Greater Beirut Area. Data were collected using a questionnaire and individual semi-structured interviews, 42 teachers filled the questionnaire, and 8 of those teachers were later selected for the interview based on the analysis of the questionnaire. Results show that the participants remembered a variety of practices they experienced while learning algebra. They recalled how their teachers explained lessons, what activities they were engaged in, how their teachers assessed them, how the discussion was carried out inside the classroom, and how their teachers interacted with them. They also remembered their own achievements, difficulties, and ways of studying algebra. The influence of these memories was manifested in several ways. Positive memories guided the participants into reproducing the good practices that they have experienced when they were students. In contrast, negative memories guided the participants into avoiding the repetition of bad practices that they have experienced. Moreover, the participants’ memories of their difficulties in learning algebra directed them to understand the difficulties that their students currently face., On the other hand, some memories of the participants’ achievements and positive interactions with their teachers inspired them to become mathematics teachers. Our results also show that there were some differences in the extent to which novice and expert teachers are influenced by their memories. Some of the novice teachers depended a lot on their school memories to guide their teaching, while others did not refer to the practices they experienced as students. On the other hand, expert teachers were more influenced by their school memories when they started teaching, but later on with experience, they learned several other practices that they now follow. Our results also show that there were differences in the influence of memories between and within the categories of teachers who have a TD and those who do not.