The effect of enhancing prior knowledge on the learning behaviors of students and the teaching practices of mathematics teachers

Abstract EN

This study aimed to investigate how the teaching practices of mathematics teachers and learning behaviors of primary school students were affected when necessary topic-specific prior mathematical knowledge was enhanced at the beginning of lessons.

Ten teachers were trained and then implemented the strategy for four weeks.

Following this, semi-structured interviews were conducted with the teachers to understand how this strategy affected their teaching practices and their students’ learning behaviors.

The findings reveal that the students were more motivated and appeared to be more independent in their learning.

Moreover, the teachers tended to be more comfortable with the strategy and believed that it encouraged them to adopt active learning approaches.

They also had more time to help the lower achieving students.