Teachers’ design of heuristic trees

Abstract

In scaling up the use of heuristic trees to facilitate students’ mathematical problem solving, we developed a design course and design protocol for heuristic trees. However, designing heuristic trees is a challenging task. The study reported in this paper aims to collate an inventory of teachers’ difficulties in designing heuristic trees. We analyzed a sample of heuristic trees teachers designed after participating in the course. Through open coding we arrived at a list of mistakes in the designs, and showed how these relate to the design principles for heuristic trees. We see support for the conclusion that most of the design principles are not straightforward to implement. In particular, teachers need to address the general techniques and concepts in the problem, and provide support for students in a way that needs no further intervention by the teachers.