Interaction between a First-Year Elementary School Teacher and Students in Mathematics Class

Abstract

Teaching and learning mathematics in a classroom setting is based on the interactions between the teacher and her students. Using classroom observations and interviews of students and the teacher, this research examines a first-year teacher and her students' interactions in the mathematics classroom. In this mathematics classroom, teacher and students interaction had inconsistency between mathematical topics and non-mathematical topics. For non-mathematical topics, their interactions were very active but for mathematical topics their interactions were very limited. This paper ends with raising questions for future research and calling for the opportunities for first-year teachers to reflect on their interactions with their students, in particular about mathematical topics.