The purpose of my study is to contribute knowledge about how class teachers can work with students who are in mathematics difficulties. The question at issues I have is: Which methods can class teachers in grades 1-3 use to help students with mathematics difficulties? and Which obstacles and opportunities are there in this work? To get answers to my questions, I have read relevant literature and interviewed 3 class teachers in central Sweden. Through my interview I learned that education should include and build on concrete materials and methods. I also got to know that time is the biggest obstacle to helping students with mathematics difficulties. Keywords: mathematics difficulties, methods, obstacles, opportunities.

This research is about the experience educationalists have of children encountering mathematics in a preschool. What is the impact of introducing mathematics in preschool? How do educationalists work with mathematics and how do they experience the children?s interest in mathematics?  The aim of this degree project is to examine how educationalists experience children´s interest in mathematics when they encounter mathematics at an early age. The degree project is limited to educationalists and children within a preschool located north of Stockholm.This research seeks answers to the following questions at issue. Does an early encounter with mathematics in preschool lead to increased interest in mathematics among children?  How can educationalists in preschool work in a appropriate way with mathematics to stimulate children to develop within mathematics and to increase their interest? How does educationalists in preschool experience children´s interest in mathematics?Theories by Piaget, Vygotskij and Dewey were used as well as former research in this subject.To answer the aim and the questions at issue in this research, three interviews was conducted with educationalists at the preschool and recorded with a Dictaphone.

AbstractThe purpose of this investigation was to understand how teachers/pedagogues nowadays work with mathematics in school. In what way can they pin point the difficulties a pupil with another language might have with mathematics.I started the process of this investigation by reading litterature on the subject. Then I did interviews with several teachers and pedagogues teaching in different schools with children at different ages.The results found in my investegation pointed to a lack of practical work with mathematics especially in classroom and revealed from the teachers a strong desire to work with mathematics in different ways.?Talking maths? with pupils in class will help them understand the subject better. Several teachers are of the opinion that the pupils will reach the goals in school with this method.The teachers are also aware of the importance of having practical mathematics.

The aim of this study is to investigate into the use of discussions in the classroom to help the pupils develop a deeper understanding of mathematical concepts and operations. The empirical data contain interviews with two teachers and observations from their lessons. The purpose of the interviews was to find out what importance the teachers ascribed to the ability of their pupils to talk about mathematics, and how they organised their classes to encourage mathematical discussions. With the observations, I was able to see the interaction in the classroom and hear discussions between the teacher and the pupils, as well as between the pupils themselves.The interviewed teachers proved to share my own belief in the results of researchers like Malmer (1999) and Löwing (2006) about the importance of verbal discussion, argumentation and reflection during mathematics classes. But convictions derived from the research of others are one thing, the practical application of the wisdom in the classroom another.

Swedish students' knowledge of mathematics has deteriorated in recent years. Teaching of mathematics is therefore starting point in an ongoing discussion among researchers, school leaders, politicians, teachers and others, who all thinks they know best about how teaching should be designed to the greatest extent possible to raise students' proficiency levels in the subject. Teachers' practices have long been the focus of discussions and views on these differ. The purpose of this paper is therefore to study students 'conceptions of mathematics and mathematics teaching, with teachers' methods and tools of focus, in relation to previous research on the subject. The method used was a survey of students in secondary school and a textual analysis of previous studies on the subject.As revealed by the survey was that the textbook has a big advantage in mathematics education in Sweden today.Many students are not accustomed to working in a different way and thereforedoes not know either what the alternative approach entails.

The aim of this thesis is to try to make the mathematics content of textile handicraft visible. This is done through an attempt at integrated studies in the two subjects with 6th grade students.The main question is: In what way may integrated studies in mathematics and textile handicraft lead to making the mathematics content of textile handicraft visible to the students? This question has been divided into three sub-questions: 1. What knowledge do students have on the order of the millimeter, centimeter, decimeter and meter units of length?, 2.

In order to be a good teacher according to preferences from outside the school area, there are many different voices to listen to. The different roles that are assigned for teachers are colliding with the latest research from the pedagogical institutions and therefore the role as a teacher of today is in a complex state of mind. Somewhere, between the traditional role of teaching and the moderating ideal image, reality is revealed in the ambivalent role of the teacher of today. In this pedagogical essay on advanced level we are focusing on obstacles that are hindering the moderating teacher?s role, to be fully developed in the classroom.

This is a study, where we have deepened ourselves little more in the Swedish and the Turkish teacher training. We have both looked on the differences and the resemblances. We are also aware about that the essay builds on a small study and a limited material, special when it comes to the Turkish teacher training. Therefore we have drawn our conclusions with big caution. They are examined and preliminary, but we are than however convinced about that.

During my practical training period I observed that many of the students have a negative attitude against mathematics. I also observed that these students have a difficulty reaching the goals in the subject. In my opinion there are different factors that can be the reason to why these students experiences mathematics as a difficult subject in school. This is the reason why I wanted to find out which factors that lies behind the difficulties and how the pedagogues work to support these students. It is also significant that every single student get their rights to develop a positive attitude against mathematics and that the pedagogue supports the students in their development.The point with this degree project is to find out, with the help of three pedagogues, which factors that could lead to difficulties in mathematics with students.

In order to be a good teacher according to preferences from outside the school area, there are many different voices to listen to. The different roles that are assigned for teachers are colliding with the latest research from the pedagogical institutions and therefore the role as a teacher of today is in a complex state of mind. Somewhere, between the traditional role of teaching and the moderating ideal image, reality is revealed in the ambivalent role of the teacher of today. In this pedagogical essay on advanced level we are focusing on obstacles that are hindering the moderating teacher?s role, to be fully developed in the classroom.

The purpose of this study is to compare different ways to teach mathematics in the school's lower age groups, and to examine whether certain practices increase students' desire and motivation to learn the subject. The questions used to determine the purpose is the following: What vision has the students in the class at maths? How does the teaching of mathematics in the class look like?What vision has the students in the class at working with different approaches in education?Does the traditional approach  and the options that I am examining meet the steering documents requirements?  The essay is organized as a qualitative study. The study was conducted in an elementary school in Sweden, third grade. The methods used included interviews with students and observations in the classroom.

The study´s main purpose is to examine how three educators who work with children ages 1-3  in three different preschools working with mathematics in preschool. I have used a qualitative research in the form of interviews to obtain educators perspectives on their working. The educator´s stories about their working methods are the most important findings and it turned out that the interviewed educators was working fairly similar in terms of mathematics learning with the youngest children  in preschool. They both schedule mathematics in various activities and work with it in everyday situations. Their different approaches can be divided into five different categories which are: planned theme work and experiences, body and play, interaction and conversation, environment and materials, visualize mathematics..

The aim of my study is to examine how six teachers discuss their choices of work methods in teaching mathematics, as well as the methods they are currently using and what they have based their choices on. This study also covers how these teachers approach educational planning and where they get inspiration for their teaching material, and finally the advantages and disadvantages of each method according to the teachers. To be able to fulfill my purpose of this study some questions had to be considered: How do these teachers approach the planning of studies of mathematics and where do they find ideas for their lesson planning? Which methods do these teachers use in the teaching of mathematics and what are the reasons behind their choices of methods? Which advantages and disadvantages do these teachers see in the methods they use during the teaching of mathematics? This is a qualitative study, mainly based on qualitative research interviews according to an interview guide. Six teachers, from five different elementary schools, grade 1- 3, have been interviewed for this study.

AbstractBy finding out the pupils' choice of strategies for problem solving, we as teachers, can get a better understanding of their way of thinking, and thus also help them develop in their learning of mathematics. In a classroom environment where several different strategies could be found, the pupils' learning is facilitated as they, with the help of classmates, find positive and negative attributes of different kinds of strategies. The pupils are, in other words, each other's resources, rather than competitors. The main point is that the classroom environment, as well as the role of the teacher in the classroom, are both key elements for good mathematics learning.In order to increase the understanding of the pupils' choice of learning strategies, a survey was performed based on two school classes, one third grade and one six grade class at the same school. Both classes received the same mathematical problem to work with, and the strategies observed were analyzed and compared.

The Squares Family is a game developed as a learning aid in mathematics. With its graphical representation of the decimal system, the four basic arithmetic operations and positive and negative numbers together with a learning agent as pedagogical approach, the game?s primary purpose is to motivate students in their learning of mathematics. Although the game is strictly based on mathematical rules it attempts to encourage students to play and work with math without experiencing it as mathematics as this is initially not obvious. The game being internationally tested on normal performing students, this project introduced the game to six Swedish students who experience low motivation for and/or difficulties in mathematics.