The Comparative Research On Problem Chain Teaching Between Expert And Novice Mathematics Teachers In Junior Middle School

Since the new curriculum reform has been implemented in the compulsory education phase, mathematics education pays more attention to students’ inquiry learning. Recently,“Problem chain”, as an effective teaching strategy in class, has gradually attracted the concern of teachers and educators. As a result, it tends to be more valuable of exploring the ways to improve teachers’ skills of problem chain teaching. The thesis mainly analyzed the characteristics and differences of problem chain teaching between expert and novice mathematics teachers in junior middle school, explored the effective ways to optimize problem chain, and offered advice to help novice teachers with the design and usage of problem chain.The research adopted the mixed method of qualitative analysis and quantitative analysis. Firstly, through searching the related literatures, four dimensions of the comparative research were confirmed, including the value of problem chain teaching, the ability of designing problem chain, the validity of using problem chain, and the reflection after class. Secondly, the author investigated math teachers in junior school about the current situation of problem chain teaching, collected data by observation of different types of math classes in grade eight and semi-structured interview as well. At last, based on the data and lesson cases, we compared problem chain teaching between expert and novice teachers, and sum up the overall differences between the two types of teachers.Through the comparison, we found several advantages of expert teachers’ problem chain teaching as follows:(1) The cognitive level gradient of problem chain is so appropriate that students can be promoted to explore actively.(2) The problem chain is logically structured so that students may establish good knowledge structure.(3) Expert teachers are quite good at examining minutely to deepen the understanding of the students.(4) The problem chain is designed to be rich in connotation and prospective in sense.Based on the results above, the author puts forward feasible suggestions to improve teaching skills on problem chain. First of all, both mathematical logic and interestingness should be considered in the designing of problem chain. Secondly, teachers ought to pay attention to the hierarchy, relevance and systemic of the problem chain. Afterwards,teachers should hold the pace of class, and concern the generating problems in students’ answer. Last but not least, Rome was not built in one day, only by accumulating and completing mathematical knowledge structure can turn green hands into experts.