Examining the role played by resources, goals and orientations in primary teachers’ decision- making for problem-solving lesson plans

The decisions that teachers make in transforming the curriculum into specific lesson plans determine the real enactment or otherwise of curricular ideals. These decisions are shaped by the resources available and by each teacher’s goals and orientations. This exploratory study employs Schoenfeld’s decision-making model to examine how resources, goals and orientations influence lesson planning for mathematics problem solving, for different profiles of primary teachers in Chile. To this purpose, a survey was conducted among 40 teachers of varying degrees of ability and experience: some were beginning teachers, others were experienced but had no further training in teaching problem solving and a third group was composed of experienced teachers with specific training in this question. Interviews with two teachers from each profile revealed important differences between the three groups. Beginning teachers relied more heavily on official resources such as the official curriculum and standard textbooks, aligning themselves with school requirements. Experienced teachers with problem solving training demonstrated a strong inclination towards teaching through a problem solving approach. While beginning teachers acknowledged the importance of promoting problem solving strategies, they did not usually adapt problems to the mathematical content or to the age/competence of their students. Interestingly, all three groups under-utilised sections of curricular resources that emphasise the present curricular focus on problem solving. Finally, the study found that experience alone is not enough to develop a problem solving approach and that focused professional development programmes are needed to equip teachers with the necessary skills. In addition, a diagnostic teaching approach should be incorporated into initial teacher training.