Abstract
Participants in this study were asked to report what strategies were most often used in their attempts to foster their students’ problem solving abilities. Participants included 70 second through fifth-grade elementary teachers from 42 schools in a large state of the south central region in the US. Data analyses of the interviews revealed that none of the educators utilized all problem solving strategies recommended by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. Further examination of the interviews indicated that having their students draw a picture and identify key information was the teachers’ most taught word problem strategy. Here, we provide insight of the reported teachers’ strategies and the need for more explicit instruction of problem solving strategies when educating mathematics teachers.
