Toward a student-centred process of teaching arithmetic

This article describes a way toward a student-centred process of teaching arithmetic, where the content is harmonized with the students’ conceptual levels. At school start, one classroom teacher is guided in recurrent teaching development meetings in order to develop teaching based on the students’ prerequisites and to successively learn the students’ arithmetic. The students are assessed in interviews. Two special teachers participate and their current models of each student's arithmetic are tested when assessing the students. The students’ conceptual diversity and the consequent different content in teaching are shown. Further, the special teachers’ assessments and the class teacher's opinion of the new way of teaching are reported. A wide range both of the students’ conceptual levels and of the kinds of relevant problems was found. The special teachers manage their duties well and the classroom teacher has so far been satisfied with the new teaching process.

Research highlights▶ The research highlights a student-centred process of teaching arithmetic, where the content is harmonized with the students’ conceptual levels. ▶ The teacher is guided in teaching development meetings to perform the teaching. ▶ The results show that the students in Grade 1 are spread over four conceptual levels. ▶ The impact of the conceptual variation on the range of solvable arithmetical tasks at each level is exemplified.