An Analysis Of Difficulty Levels Of Problems Used In High School Mathematic Classes

Mathematic class is the main venues where teachers and students exchange their ideas. But the data results of TIMSS 1999 video study showed that what the students mainly learn in class is to solve problems. Therefore, to research on the problems which are used in the Chinese mathematic class is very important to the interpretation of the Chinese mathematics teaching.This paper mainly focuses on the investigation of the difficulty of the problems used in class by teachers. We plan to do this in two ways. The first one is that we survey on the feelings of the students about the difficulty of the problems in class for a week. That is, the evaluation the students have of themselves about the understanding of the problems in class. The second way is that we also investigate about the estimate the teachers have about the levels of the students for the problems (before and after the teacher's explanation of the problems) as well as the actual situation. Then, we compare and analyze the findings of these two surveys and try to get some explanations to the effectiveness of the Chinese students' study from these comparative results. In addition, we interviewed the teachers for the purpose to get some information about how they prepare for their lessons. For example, we want to know whether they prepare their lessons together and how long will this happen?According to the survey, there exists gap between the teachers' estimation to the students and the students' self-assessment. The possible reason for this situation can be that teachers have different understanding about mastering a problem from the students. Teachers consider mastering a problem to be that one can solve it when he meets it again, not just to understand it. Whether from the teachers' estimation, or from the students' self-evaluation, we can see that the teachers design the examples in accordance with the order to certain arrangements not the simple repeat of the problems which have the same levels of difficulty. The majority of the cases, they put them in the order that students feel more and more difficult when they face the problems.In conclusion, the article also survey on what the approach will be taken by the students when they encountered difficulties in class. According to the survey, the most common way students take is to ask the teacher after school hours directly, rather than to leave the problems to their parents or tutors, and would not leave them to the third year to resolve. This reflects not only the positive attitude to study of the students, but also an increase of the burden on teachers.The innovation in this paper lies in this: we investigate and analyze the difficulty of the problem used in classes from the point of the "feelings" of the students, and then we compare the result of the survey with the estimate of the teachers, not just research on the difficulty of the problems in itself.