Social norms in mathematical classroom

Two weeks ago, I had a very nice discussion with Dolly van Eerde in Design Research course. One of topics we talk about is social norms in mathematical classroom. Social norms refer to expected ways of acting during the interaction between teacher and students. The didactical contract is another term that common to be used to express it.

What makes it so important to be discussed?
It is important to be discussed because these norms will influence the process of mathematical learning.  Social norms can be considered as an unwritten contract about how every people in a learning environment should act. It determines the role of teacher and students in the classroom. Gravemeijer and Cobb stated that these norms will significantly differ between traditional math classroom and the reform classroom.
In the traditional mathematical classroom -- the situation that we often encounter in Indonesia -- the roles of teacher are giving instruction and evaluation. If the teacher poses questions, most of them are closed question. The students in this typical environment are expected to try hard in understanding the teacher's explanation. They are required to act according to the teaches's expectation.
However, the roles of teacher in the reform math classroom are quite different. The teacher's roles are introducing interesting activities, posing open question and follow up question, asking explanation and justification, promoting interaction between students, and making sure to invite all students to participate.

How to change the norms in the classroom?


We cannot change everything in one night, but it is something that worth to do. We all agree that changing habit needs time. The problem is how we can make the students behave as we expected to occur in the reform math classroom.  Indeed, we cannot immediately ask the students to behave in this way or that way. It is possible that they don't know how to do it. It is the point of education, as a teacher we must educate them. We can give them example, we can be a role model.
We can show the students how to appreciate explanation or justification of others by showing our appreciation to theirs. Although we often see that remarks given by the students are irrelevant, we can still provide a feedback and tell them that we are talking about another point instead of ignoring their participation. In this sense, I experienced it by my self. Instead of interrupting my explanation that out of topic during the discussion in one of the course, my lecturer listen to me carefully until I finish my sentence. She then tell me that my points are interesting but that is not the answer to her question. :)

Another point that important to be stressed in math classroom that the students feel secure to expose their thinking. We need to make them sure that it is fine to make a mistake in mathematical learning. It is not something bad. We need to make them realize that if they do not show their mistake, we will not know how to help them to be better learner.

I hope this post contributes something to all of you. :)
Keep fighting, math educators!

18.10.2011
afatsa