Cognition of Pre-service Mathematics Teachers about the Usage of PowerPoint (PPT) in Mathematics Teaching in China

Abstract

Under the background of the information age, information technology has gradually been widely used in mathematics classroom teaching, and how to use PowerPoint (hereinafter referred to as PPT) in mathematics teaching has received great attention. At present, many scholars have carried out research in this aspect, but there is no research on the cognition of pre-service mathematics teachers about the usage of PPT in mathematics teaching. This paper adopts open interview to investigate 32 pre-service mathematics teachers in China. It was found that: (1) Current pre-service teachers' view the value of PPT mainly for teaching and knowledge presentation. On how to make better use of PPT, the pre-service teachers mainly use PPT for presentation. (2) The pre-service teachers do not have a comprehensive understanding of using PPT for mathematics teaching. Although the dimensions they pay attention to are consistent with previous studies, there are still many aspects that they do not know. (3) The pre-service teachers do not have a deep understanding of the usage of PPT in mathematics teaching, and there are many contradictory views in different dimensions. Based on the findings, the following suggestions are given: (1) Teacher educators should systematically teach them how to operate PPT and assign them a series of tasks to enhance their ability of information resource mining and integration and improve their understanding of PPT. (2) Teacher educators should show the different effects of PPT on pre-service teachers, and lead them to explore the techniques and principles to achieve these effects. This will enable them think about the integration measures of PPT and mathematics teaching, to improve their ability of independent learning and development. (3) Educators should increase practical training and provide more opportunities for pre-service teachers to use PPT in mathematics teaching, to let them feel the value of PPT in practice and explore the best time to use PPT, and finally enable them to master the method of using PPT in mathematics teaching.