A Case Study of Elementary Teachers’ Use of Instruction Time in Mathematics

Abstract

This study probed into elementary school teachers’ use of instruction time in mathematics on the basis of a case study. Recording a teacher with 20 years’ teaching experience in his classroom and having interviews with him for six months, this study aims to understand the teacher’s use of mathematics instruction time and the influencing factors on this case. According to the results, the teacher in this case tends to divide his teaching activities into review and preview, new content development, interactions and discussions, and exercises and applications. In each class, he would carry out these activities. As the teaching of a module advanced, less instruction time is spent on new content development and more on interactions, discussions, exercises and applications. In terms of the factors influential on the instruction time use, the teacher in this case takes into account mainly the students’ learning initiatives in mathematics and their learning motives, and rarely considers other factors.