List of Content

Spring 2021

Editorial from Bronisław Czarnocha

The Mathematics Instruction in Rural Area during the Pandemic Era: Problems and Solutions
Benidiktus Tanujaya, Rully Charitas Indra Prahmana, Jeinne Mumu; Indonesia

What Works and What Does Not: A Reflective Practice on an Online Mathematics Class
Haoyi Wang, USA

Teaching and learning of mathematics and criteria for its improvement from the perspective of future teachers: a view from the Ontosemiotic Approach
Adriana Breda, Spain; María José Seckel, Chile; Danyal Farsani, Chile; José Fernandes da Silva, Brasil; Eulalia Calle, Equador

Modeling Through Model-Eliciting Activities: An Analysis of Models, Elements, And Strategies in High School. The Cases of Students with Different Level of Achievement
Jair J. Aguilar, USA

Mathematical Problem Solving in two Teachers’ Knowledge Models: A Critical Analysis
Juan Luis Piñeiro, Chile; Elena Castro-Rodríguez, Spain; Enrique Castro, Spain

An Experimental Study of Collaborative Instructional Strategy (CIS) for Teaching Mathematics at Primary level in Pakistan
Amjad Ali, Dr. Nasir Ahmad, Dr. Sajjad Hussain, Pakistan

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Editorial from Bronisław Czarnocha

One of the important changes MTRJ is going through is the diversity of submitted and published papers with respect to their national origins. Since we are delighted by the process, we decided to indicate the regions of origin of papers both in the List of Content as well as in the Editorial.

The first two papers of the current issue give, possibly the last look at the teaching during pandemic, informing, from West Papua, Indonesia about particularly difficult situation in rural areas of the country where Internet connection has been absent. The teachers, clearly essential workers, have been visiting homes of individual children and teaching in their homes. Obviously, they were spending 2-3 times more teaching hours than their regular load in addition to preparation of materials and homework grading. The authors propose Blending Learning as the proper path for West Papua.

On the other hand, the second paper by Haoyi Wang, a graduate student from Illinois, tells us what works and what does not while teaching online. Both papers are continuation of our discussion of the pandemic teaching from the Vol. 12 N 3.

The next four papers open wide discussion concerning different aspects of mathematics teachers’ knowledge. Breda et al. question the concept of improvement of learning. They find out that accordingly to newly prepared teachers’ improvement of learning is possible in the cognitive, ecological, and emotional aspects and, to a lesser extent, in the interactional, mediational and epistemic [aspects] Their discussion is in the context of scientifically deciphering the meaning of didactics itself, and what is especially interesting, it is based on the data collection from three different countries: Spain, Chile and Ecuador. On the other hand, the work by Jay Aguilar from  the University of Texas, Rio Grande Valley, looks at the didactics of modelling and finds it very suitable for teaching both high and low achievement students. It is a very optimistic and motivating result; it corresponds to the formulation of mathematical creativity of Aha!Moment as the theory of creativity for and of all students (Czarnocha and Baker, 2021). Aguilar’s work is complemented in this issue by Piñeiro et al., the work of colleagues from Chile and Spain, which investigates teachers’ preparation as the problem-solving instructors. They find that neither of the Problem- Solving models present in the Math Education profession does justice to the requirements of the problem-solving pedagogy. They ask an important question how [teachers’] knowledge about PS is actually used in classroom practice – an excellent teaching-research question, in our opinion.

The issue closes with the analysis of the didactics of collaborative teaching penned by Amjad Ali et al. our colleagues from Pakistan. Collaborative teaching is very close to our hearts in the South Bronx, as it is one of the routes of facilitation classroom Aha!Moments. The authors used standard method of the experimental and control groups of the fifth grade students and were able to demonstrate that collaborative teaching results in statistically significant achievement improvement.

Bronisław Czarnocha
Chief Editor of MTRJ