Teaching Styles in the Teaching of Mathematics Thematically

Interview Component of the Study 
The purpose of the interview component of the study was to explore teachers’ teaching 
styles in regard to their teaching of mathematics thematically. Ten teachers of the 
Standard course who were living in the Metropolitan area were selected from 
questionnaire respondents who indicated their willingness to be interviewed as a follow-
up to the questionnaire. The final 10 teachers were selected on the basis of achieving an 
equal representation of gender, academic qualifications, socio-economic teaching area, 
years of experience and faculty position.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 
 
Quantitative Results 
Questionnaire results indicate a support for the first (
M
= 4.95; 
S.D
. = 1.74) and second 
teaching styles (
M 
= 5.14; 
S.D. 
= 1.53), as opposed to the third style (
M
= 3.34; 
S.D
. 
1.79).
 
The results suggest that by supporting the first and second teaching styles teachers 
practice a compromise version of the constructivist goals on which teaching mathematics 
thematically was designed. The low support for the third teaching style suggests that 
teachers tended to operate in a more traditional style.
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Qualitative Results 
The analysis of teachers’ responses in the interview component of the study regarding 
their teaching styles confirmed the existence of the three main teaching styles. As 
discussed earlier, the first teaching style is characterised by drill and repetitive exercises, 
while the second style consists of a combination of rote learning and word problems. In 
turn, the third style makes greater use of modelling experiences and hands-on activities in 
learning mathematics thematically.
Responses during the interviews revealed three 
related
styles in teaching mathematics 
thematically in the Standard course. In the first style, teachers tended to use textbooks 
written before the 1996 Standard course was introduced, and consequently based the 
thematic lesson or unit on topics only. Teaching thematically was therefore reduced to a 
few examples at the end of the unit or chapter showing isolated applications of 
mathematics instead of using a theme as a unifying idea. A teacher using this style was 
typically convinced that students like mathematics
 
taught more according to topics than 
themes. This was the simplest of all the thematic styles because themes were just simple 
illustrations of a mathematical concept.
The second style can be split into two sub-styles and focused more on applications of 
mathematics organised around a central theme. In the first sub-style, a typical lesson 
would consist of a topic being taught in isolation followed by applications of 
mathematics related to a single theme. A teacher interviewed called this style "teaching 
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topics in themes". A typical lesson would commence with the teaching of basic skills and 
later teachers would introduce examples of real-life mathematics related only to the 
theme. One teacher explained that she operated in this sub-style because she believed that 
“it’s better for the students to actually spend more time on improving their basic skills 
and then applying those skills to themes rather than just concentrate on themes”. 
The second sub-style is a variant of the first except that the theme is presented early as 
the central idea of the lesson. In this sub-style the teacher may use the theme to unfold 
the learning scene to motivate the class. Alternatively, the teacher may pose a thematic 
problem at the beginning of the lesson and then conduct a brainstorming activity to elicit 
mathematical procedures and ideas from the students. Gradually the teacher becomes 
more direct in his or her teaching and begins to introduce the mathematical content and 
procedures. Essentially, the theme is used as a generative idea to increase participation. A 
broad range of depth in the theme itself and in the mathematical content can be observed 
when teachers operate in this style. For example, teachers can use the theme simply as a 
motivator to teach basic skills to justify their observance of the curriculum. Consequently 
this approach can turn into merely teaching a topic in the name of a theme. Alternatively, 
the theme can be used as a powerful generator of ideas that can go beyond the 
disciplinary limits of the subject. This second sub-style obviously requires more 
preparation, pedagogical skill, effort and resources. 
The third teaching style is more investigative in nature. A teacher operating in this style 
would use the theme as a way to discover and model knowledge in open-ended activities. 
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Students ideally begin their learning through hands-on activities and later work through 
examples to identify and eventually generate the mathematical idea. This is probably the 
most elaborate type of teaching thematically and requires complex teaching expertise. As 
a result of this style of teaching students would probably be engaged in research 
assignments and mini-projects. The assessment is usually more complex than just paper-
and-pencil tests. One teacher committed to this style described their faculty’s approach: 
What we try to do at our school is create projects or mini-assignments within 
class time where students work at their own pace. We do try to provide a few 
prerequisites beforehand… We try to do it within class time. 
Analysis of teachers’ responses on the open-ended section of the questionnaire revealed 
that they switch between styles depending on the learning context. Teachers’ responses 
show that they usually do not teach solely according to one style but move back and forth 
from one to the other. Typical of these comments were: "A combination of the first two is 
usually the way to go", "I’m a bit of each at different times", "It is important to use many 
different strategies", and "A combination of all of the above techniques". The decision to 
adopt a particular teaching style seemed to depend on the need to cater for all learning 
styles, the nature of the topic or "what is to be taught", the type of students and time 
restraints in moving to more innovative teaching styles. 
Interviewees’ responses shed more light into this interactive process. This oscillating 
movement between teaching styles may even occur within one single lesson. Often 
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teachers have to revert from complex to more simple styles in order to revisit basic skills. 
It appears from the interviewees’ responses that the most frequent style is the first sub-
style of "teaching themes in topics". In general, teachers’ choice of each style depends on 
several factors. One factor is their personal attitude toward teaching mathematics 
thematically. Very often the attitude like/dislike is a function of the complexity of a 
particular style. Another factor is the teacher’s feeling of self-competence of teaching in a