Challenges and prospective directions of enhancing teaching mathematics theorems in school

Abstract

Students master the methods of reasoning and argumentation in school mathematics when study theorems and their proofs. In studying theorems, students must learn to understand the essence of the theorem. For this, special work with the wording of the theorem is necessary. We believe that this work must contain: a) four mandatory stages; b) three stages for students who take a genuine interest in mathematics; c) stage for those who want to go further in learning mathematics. The aim of this study is to investigate the challenges in teacher practices during four mandatory stages; to reveal the obvious and hidden factors that affect student outcomes. For this study, a survey that involved 129 mathematics teachers across Ukraine was carried out. A standard closed ended questionnaire was developed. Several challenges were found in the area of students’ motivation, and teachers’ lack of understanding of how to most efficiently teach the wording of theorems. Factor analysis was used to analyze the results of the survey, and 10 variables were found to describe how teachers motivated students to learn theorems and taught the wording of theorems.