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Margo Kondratieva, Memorial University, CanadaAbstract
The study sought to identify gaps in teachers’ readiness to implement a problem-solving approach in mathematics. To achieve that, we analyzed the journals of in-service mathematics teachers enrolled in a graduate course at a Canadian university in 2022. The course focused on developing mathematical thinking through reading and practice. Participants wrote weekly journals describing their previous problem-solving experiences – both as students and teachers – and any ongoing changes resulting from the coursework. Nine teachers who perceived their past encounters with solving mathematical problems as positive were selected for the study. However, this favorable perception of problem-solving alone was insufficient for the confident and effective implementation of the approach in the classroom. We found that, prior to taking the course, the teachers were unaware of many ideas identified in research literature as fundamental and vital to the problem-solving process, let alone had the opportunity to test them in action. In this paper we discuss the six most common ideas cited by teachers in their journals and labeled as both new and useful. Our findings highlight a significant disconnect between research-based recommendations for mathematical problem-solving and the teachers' prior professional experiences. This deficiency in theoretical grounding may hinder pedagogical success.
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Conference: WCE2026Stream: Teaching Experiences
This paper is part of the WCE2026 Conference Proceedings (View)
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To cite this article:
Kondratieva M. (2026) Developing Problem-Solving Skills in Mathematics Teacher Education: Detecting Missing Ideas ISSN: 2760-7259 The Washington DC Conference on Education 2026: Official Conference Proceedings (pp. 331-341) https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2760-7259.2026.27
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2760-7259.2026.27
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