PROCEEDINGS OF THE 22ND ANNUAL CONFERENCE ON RESEARCH IN UNDERGRADUATE MATHEMATICS EDUCATION
2019
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
Mathematicians’ perceptions of their teaching
Page: 696
Recent research in mathematics education has uncovered a host of teaching behaviors that are commonly enacted by instructors of advanced mathematics courses. While these descriptive accounts of math teaching are useful, little investigation has been conducted into the reasons for why these practices are so prevalent. In this study, we interviewed seven mathematicians about regularities that have been observed in the literature on the teaching of advanced mathematics. In this report we discuss whether mathematicians view these findings as accurate (they often did), whether they thought these regularities were productive or problematic teaching practices, and why mathematicians engaged in these teaching practices. We discuss how these themes may elucidate the practices of instructors, and later propose implications of the methods of the present study for changing how advanced math courses are taught.