International Teacher Education Conference 2014 1

International Teacher Education Conference 2014
Transformation from Teacher-Centered To Subject-Centered Mathematics
Education
Mehmet Türegün ª *
ª Barry University
Abstract
Collective learning and multiplying understandings are some of the phenomena which my students and I have
experienced in a mathematics classroom a few semesters back. In this paper, I will attempt to ground these
classroom experiences in the complexity theory of teaching and learning as outlined by Davis & Sumara (2007),
and try to describe how the complexity theory of teaching and learning, in turn, informed my classroom
practices. I will also outline some alternative ideas based on a post-modern perspective with several focus points
on the concepts of connectedness, non-linearity, holarchy, and creating spaces for an inclusive community of
learners.
Keywords.
Introduction
The perpetual fear of the unknown and uncertainty, and the comfort of the known and familiar certainty
combined together create the basis for the Western obsession with control, which is aimed at eliminating
uncertainty (Quinn, 1995). Tentacles of this obsession with control pervade at many levels and in a number of
aspects of our society. Needless to say, this obsession with control dominates our educational system and tightly
grasps our classrooms as well. Most teachers, in general, are very reluctant and afraid of letting go of control in
their classrooms. Teacher identities and desire for control in classrooms are often tied in together. According to
Scott (2008), three broad categories are proposed for teacher identities. These proposed teacher identities can be
outlined as retrospective, with strong classification and framing tendencies; prospective, with strong concerns
for efficiency, and decentered identities, with either instrumental or therapeutic tendencies. Decentered teachers
identities situate teachers in principled discourses about the purpose of education, and are inclusive in nature
(Scott, 2008). A decentered teacher identity is one of the facets of the notion of control in a classroom
environment.
The power to control or to have a control in a classroom environment or a classroom community can be
perceived as having some security or feeling more secure in the classroom. However, the idea of controlling a
classroom community tightly, in turn, creates an apparent dualistic distinction between the controller, the
teacher, and the controlled, the student. As a possible result of this dualistic distinction, and rigid boundaries
between the students and the teachers in a classroom created by our desire to have control, several issues and
concerns including, but not limited to, mutual trust, respect, cooperation, and creativity might emerge, and
negatively affect the growth of the students and the teacher, individually and the group, collectively.
My own narrative in terms of how I was to teach a calculus course is, in essence, somewhat similar to, but yet
based on a deeper and more personal dilemma than that of the narratives described by Meier & Rishel (1998),
who express their narratives for having a desire to “do something different” regarding teaching their calculus
course. I suspect my narrative can be traced back to a bifurcation point in my teaching limit cycle of “doing the
same.” According to the systems theory, when or how a bifurcation point occurs cannot be precisely predicted.
When small changes are fed back into a complex, non-linear system at some point the interruption of a limit
cycle and subsequent bifurcation point(s) occur. I suspect that as a result of personal reflections on my studies of
systems theory, several feedback loops have been forming in terms of my teaching practices. I felt strongly, in
the sense of Palmer’s (2007) notion of “divided no more”, about changing how I was teaching calculus and
transform the classroom environment of which my students and I were to be a part. My personal need and the
subsequent decision to live “divided no more” are centered on the concept of theory informing practice, not on
the intent of assaulting or criticizing my colleagues, whom I happen to notice, when walking in the hallways,
engaged in transmitting information in lecture-and-listen classroom settings. But it is rather an observation of, at
E-mail address: mturegun@barry.edu
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