Publication at Faculty of Education |
2013
Abstract
The chapter explores how the mathematics teachers taking part in our research talk about mental processes linked with learning and if they relate some of them to pupils' problems in mathematics. It is not surprising that the teachers consider understanding and long term retaining of knowledge in memory to be the key desiderable effects.
We, however, find more surprising their accent on the intensive practice which they commonly call a drill. It is interesting that we can find considerable support for this approach in psychological research and theories.
On the other hand, we also take into account possible limits of some approaches to teaching mathematics which can be infered from the interviews with teachers.