Characteristics of Finnish children’s thinking and related environmental factors : From the analyses of processes of mathematics lessons in elementary schools

What factors constrain Finnish children\u27s high level of mathematical literacy? This study examined processes of mathematics lessons in Finland where teachers organize problems and children express their ideas to the problems, based on the analyses of children\u27s and teachers ’ verbal behaviors in two classrooms. The results showed that teachers presented many problems from various viewpoints including everyday situations in a unit of mathematics lesson. Children presented their ideas briefly or in detail, in a classroom, in pairs or groups, or on their notebook, according to the types of the problems and their teachers’ orientation. Most of the problems were routine-type and teachers often asked children to explain their thinking processes and reasons of their judgments in a classroom, in order to construct steps of a solution to the problems. On the other hand, even in the case of nonroutine type problems, teachers rarely asked students to explain various solutions to the problems in a classroom, and rarely connected these solutions so as to conclude the lesson