Autoethnography of Pedagogical Conversion: Experiencing the GASING Method as an Indonesian Mathematics Educator

Abstract

Mathematics anxiety and the dominance of procedural memorisation over conceptual understanding remain persistent challenges in Indonesian schools, yet little is known about how teachers themselves experience pedagogical reform. This study aims to examine how sustained engagement with the GASING (GAmpang, ASyik, dan menyenaNGkan; easy, enjoyable, and fun) method reshapes a mathematics educator’s epistemological orientation, affective stance, and professional identity. Using reflexive autoethnography, the data came mainly from the experience of one mathematics educator, documented in personal field journals, reflective memos, and classroom materials across a fourteen-week training phase and a six-month classroom implementation phase. Iterative thematic coding, member checking, and independent coding of a data subsample turned these records into four themes: mathematical alienation under transmission-centred instruction; concretization as an epistemological rupture; affective and motivational renewal, from fear-governed performance toward curiosity-governed exploration, with episodes of regression; and a shift in teacher identity from knowledge dispenser to co-learner and cultural mediator. GASING worked for this educator as an epistemological orientation and not only as a teaching technique. As a single-case account, its implications for teacher professional development are hypotheses to be tested, not standards.