Mathematics teachers' feedback responses to students' errors and unexpected strategies

Abstract

A part of students learning in the classroom depends on how the teacher responds to their thinking. The literature has separately addressed teachers' feedback responses to errors and unexpected strategies that students put into play when solving tasks. We propose a framework to analyze these responses together based on three criteria: the focus of the answers (teacher or student), the type of knowledge (conceptual or procedural) that the teacher puts into play in the teacher-centered answers, and the types of actions (asking and proposing) involved in student-centered responses. We codified and analyzed the feedback responses of a group of mathematics teachers to a questionnaire that inquired about their curricular practices. We found similarities in their reports of responses to students' errors and unexpected strategies: two-thirds of teachers have a teacher-centered response. For the student-centered answers, the number of responses of the teacher in which he/she proposes activities is three times the number of responses in which he/she asks students questions. Furthermore, responses to unexpected strategies differ from responses to errors because teachers evaluate, correct, and accept those strategies.