Prospective Students’ Math Talk in Solving Secondary School Mathematics Problem

Abstract

To activate the cooperation or collaboration skill of the students, educator often make small groups of students and give some topics to be discussed. However, we often ignore the activities that occur within the group. This article describe the process of problem solving occurred in 3 groups of prospective students for 30 minutes. A secondary school mathematics problem given to the eight groups of prospective students. They asked to design several cardboards to pack small cubes and cuboids without any space left. The math talk during the discussion was recorded. The audio files were transcribed and coded into categories of process of understanding problem, devising a plan, carrying out the plan, and looking back. Besides, the transcription was analyzed and categorized into math talk that support or do not support the problem solving. The groups’ paper and pencil works were also analyzed to support the transcription. Of 8 groups, the math talk of 3 interesting groups were analysed more and elaborated. The result show that the most of the time the students spent is for solving the problem and the shortest is for understanding the problem. The step that still missed by the several students is looking back. This study impact is that students should enhance their skill to deliver a good argumentation. Keywords— math talk; prospective students; problem solving; discussion; argumentation