ON IN SERVICE

MATHEMATICS TEACHERS’
CONTENT KNOWLEDGE OF
CALCULUS AND RELATED
CONCEPTS
TEACHERS’ CONTENT KNOWLEDGE.
“Strong content knowledge is a necessary condition for good teaching in Mathematic”
(Toh, Chua & Yap,2007)

To teach well, a teacher of mathematics should The higher the level taught, the more
know a great deal of mathematics the teacher needs to know.

Begle
“The effect of a teacher’s subject matter
knowledge and attitude on student learning seem
to be far less powerful than many of us
assumed”.
 A teacher’s subject matter knowledge should not be
measured by the number of modules of
undergraduate mathematics taken.
Usiskin
The “great deal of mathematics” does not merely refer to the
mathematics content knowledge the teachers acquired during
their undergraduate mathematics modules.
 Explanation of new ideas, alternative ways of approaching
problems, including way with and without calculator and computer
technology, how does ideas studied in school relate to ideas students
may encounter in later mathematics study.

Mohr (2016) & Shulman (1986)

The content of mathematics include :
 Knowledge of the concepts, procedures and problem – solving processes within the area of mathematics
 Pedagogical knowledge involves knowledge of teaching the content to the students,
 LEARNING DIFFICULTIES IN
CALCULUS AND RELATED

algebra and related concepts:
CONCEPTS
There are several difficulties that had been mention about learning  In fact, teaching of integral calculus in schools just only
emphasize on defining integration as the anti-derivative
but the result most students do not acquire appropriate
o Dealing with topics on functions, graphs, and other related concept in comprehension of define integral concept.
algebra, (Judson & Nishimori,2005)  Studies on students’ learning of calculus (Tall and
o Immature understanding of functions which could have led to Vinner) used the term;
misconceptions in problem involving application of differentiation and
integration, (Judson & Nishimori,2005) o Concept image to describe ‘the total cognitive structure
that associated properties and processes’.
o Perform better in calculus if they have been given early exposure to
concepts involving inequality, summation and other algebraic concepts, o Concept definition as a form of words used by the learner
(Usiskin,2003). to define the concept.
o Instructions in secondary school calculus classrooms often emphasize  the difficulties that students encounter in calculus
procedural knowledge grounded in algebra, (Morris,1999)
concepts can be explained by the existence of a gap
o “Students regard computation as the essential outcome of calculus and thus between the concept definition and the concept image of
end their study of calculus with little conceptual understanding”(Aspinwell the limit concept
& Miller, 2017)
 The calculus concept of limit is not “commonsensical”
to them as it conflicts the use of this term in daily life.
 Ironically, the concepts that are important to non-mathematics students
are the conceptual knowledge of calculus not the procedural aspects.
 The sequence of teaching material in the secondary school calculus
content could be another source of learning difficulties for student.
This paper aims at answering the following five research
questions:
1. Are in-service teachers able to identify graphical representations
of functions and its related domain?
2. Are in-service teachers able to find the limits (including the left-
and right-limits) of functions graphically?
3. How do the in-service teachers react to the differentiation of
functions which do not have easily available “formulae”?
4. Are in-service teachers familiar with the physical interpretation of
the signs of the first and second derivatives with reference to a
graph?
5. Are in-service teachers able to associate the definite integral with
the area under the given graph?
Method :
Participant
 27 in –service mathematics teachers (various secondary
schools)
 Relatively new to the teaching services:<5 years of
teaching experience and at least 1 year of undergraduate
experience of university calculus.
 Consisted of 14 male teachers and 13 female teachers
 11 of them had obtained at least a Bachelor’s Degree in
Mathematics while 16 of them had a Bachelor’s Degree in
Engineering.
Study Model
 Used questionnaire and careful interpretation of the
participants’ response with some speculation.
 Questionnaire consisted of 7 questions (concept image and
concept definition of the various calculus concepts)
Selected Questions For Test
 Result and Discussion
1st Research Question - Are In-service Teachers Able to 2nd Research Question: Are In-service Teachers Able to Find
Identify Graphical Representations of Functions and its the Limits (Including the Left- and Right-Limits) of Functions
Related Domain? graphically?
1. 25 out 27 of participants recognized that Graph (a) does not • This question is answered by Q3 in the questionnaire
represent function. • Participants performance
2. 21 participants substantiated their answers for graph (b) of Q1 with
correct reason
3. Three participants did not state the reasons for the choice of their
answers
4. Another three participant justified their answer by incorrect reason.

Discussion
5. The teachers evidently had the concept image of a function
represented in graphical form. Discussion
6. Evidence in the scripts showed that the participants had used the
1. Concept of limit and right limit
“vertical line test” to demonstrate that Graph (a) does not represent  Most participant did not identify the correct value of the limit,
a function. However, some teachers were unable to associate with
left and right limits correctly at the points of discontinuity.
piecewise defined functions or functions whose domain is not
2. Concept of “infinity” and limits at infinity.
continuous in Graph (b).  Most participant had fairly accurate concept image of the
7. In Q2, many teachers did not recognize the existence of removable
“limits at infinity” in relation to the value it represents on the
discontinuity of the graph (represented by continuous graphs with
graph.
“punctured holes”).  Many participant had not fully understood the concept of
“infinity” as shown in their performance.
3rd Research Question: How do the In-service Teachers React to
the Differentiation of Functions which do not Have Easily
Available “Formulae”?
• This is answered by Q4 and Q5 in the questionnaire
1. Non – differentiable :
 Only four participants presented the correct solution and
identified the function is not differentiable at x = 0.
 Two participant did not attempt the question.
 Three participants got solution wrong
 18 participants did not identify the non differentiable point at x =
0.
Discussion
 Participants failed to link the tasks to the concepts or the
principles underlying the procedure.
 From the teachers’ tentative solutions
4th Research Question : Are In-service Teachers Familiar with
the Physical Interpretation of the Signs of the First and Second
Derivatives with Reference to a Graph?
*the response to Q6
Discussion
1. From the answers to (a1) to (b3), most participant were able :
 Associate the sign of the y-values with the region of the graph
which is either above or below the x-axis.
 Recognize the sign of the first derivative as the increasing or
decreasing part of the graph.
2. (b2) Eight out 27 participants could not recognize the function is non-
differentiable at the point where the tangent is parallel to the y-axis.
3. Together with Q3, the result shows that the teachers did not have
sufficient concept images associated with non-differentiability of a point
on the graph of function, see
Figure 2.
  Research Question 5 - Are In-service Teachers Able to
Associate the Definite Integral with the Area Under the Given
Graph?
• For question 7(a) and 7(b)
Q1
1. 25 participants identified that represented the area under the straight
line graph.
2. Two participants sketched the graph y = x + 3 wrongly
3. Two participants performed direct integration

1. Concept definition and associated concept images of non- Q2

differentiable points. 4. Different answers provided by the participants
2. Most participants did not associate the second derivative
with the concavity of the graph.
3. Nine participants indicated the answer for (c2) as “zero” for
the inflexion point at x =5

Discussion
5. Most participants had the concept definition of definite integral as the
area under graph
6. The mistakes made by the participants under category II to IV
4. The application of the procedural rule of finding points 7. The seven participants classified as category II and III for their
inflexion could cause incomplete concept images and even response to Q7 (b)
misconceptions about points of inflexion as not all points
inflexion are differentiable
 Exploratory study could spur
The method used was based
further research into exploring
on a questionnaire followed
specific areas of teachers’
by interpretation of the
content knowledge in various
participants’ response
aspect of calculus.

LIMITATION OF THIS
STUDY
A careful interview could have The sample size was rather
provided more useful small and might not be
information and illuminating random so that it might be
facts about teachers’ conceptual difficult to render the result
knowledge of calculus. to be generalizable.
Although it should also be noted that
interviews not properly administered
could also affect the interviewee's
ideas and hence render the results
unreliable.