Novice kindergarten and elementary teachers' lived experience with math content and instruction

ABSTRACT

Math proficiency in the elementary grades is one component to ensuring a highly qualified science, math, engineering, and technology workforce. The literature indicates that teachers of those early years greatly impact their students' future attitudes and abilities in the STEM fields. Therefore, it is critical that administrators, teacher education programs, and policymakers implement procedures to prepare and empower preservice teachers. This hermeneutic phenomenology focused on novice teachers' impressions of their preparedness regarding kindergarten and elementary math content and pedagogy. Ten teachers answered questions about their past educational experiences, their current teaching position, and strategies for addressing challenges. Unfamiliar curriculum and gaps in basic student knowledge were two of the difficulties that the teachers mentioned. They faced these issues through differentiation, collaboration, and self-reflection. Collaborating with a mentor or colleagues allowed these novice teachers to glean resources and strategies that helped them navigate elementary math content and pedagogy. In addition, this study revealed the influence that the teachers' resilience had on their ability to maneuver the difficulties inherent in the first two years as a classroom teacher. The impact of attending a faith-based university, the influence of middle-school math teachers, resilience in kindergarten through elementary teachers, and managing the consequences of Covid-19 restrictions in schools warrant further study as they relate to math content and instruction in kindergarten through fifth-grade mathematics. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)