Studying mathematics teachers’ design of tasks inspired by authentic practices

This paper reports a case study research aiming to explore the potential of authentic workplace situations in mathematics teaching in upper secondary classes. For this purpose, seven teachers participated in a group aiming to connect the teaching and learning of mathematics with the marine navy context (ship navigation). We use the notion of the mathematical working space to compare the tasks designed by two of the teachers for their lessons inspired by authentic ship navigation practices. The results indicate substantial differences of the two designed working spaces in terms of their semiotic, instrumental and discursive dimensions

Transforming critical events through script writing in mathematics teacher education

This paper proposes a teacher education strategy based on a combination of critical events and scripting dialogues. This strategy was used in two teacher education contexts in Israel and Greece with thirty-four prospective teachers (PTs). The PTs identified critical events in the context of their field experiences and transformed them into scripting dialogues with the aim to handle students’ difficulties. The analysis focuses on the adopted pedagogical actions in the critical events and the scripting dialogues. The PTs used general and mathematics-specific actions to address students’ difficulties promoting their conceptual understanding

Teachers’ attempts to address both mathematical challenge and differentiation in whole class discussion

International audienceIn this paper we investigate how a group of six mathematics teachers in Greece deals with the need to balance work on mathematically demanding tasks and differentiation in lesson planning and enactment. Videotaped lessons and pre and post reflection interviews were analysed with a specific focus on whole class discussion. The findings show certain teaching practices that appear to promote both mathematical challenge and differentiation and emerging patterns of actions that make the challenge accessible to students

INTRODUCTION TO THE PAPERS AND POSTERS OF WG15: TECHNOLOGIES AND RESOURCES IN MATHEMATICS EDUCATION

International audienceIntroduction to the working group 15 "Technologies and resources in mathematics education

TELMA Cross Experiment Guidelines

Cerulli, M., Pedemonte, B., Robotti, E. (eds.). Internal Report, R.I. 01/07, I.T.D. - C.N.R., GenovaThis document contains the guidelines developed by members of TELMA as a means for planning, conducting, and analysing a cross experiment aimed at contributing to the construction of a shared research perspective among TELMA teams . This is the product of the PhD students and young researchers that brought forward the whole activity. The actual experimental phase was proceeded by a reflective phase in which an agreement was achieved on what research questions to address during the experiment. On this basis the first version of the guidelines document was built, containing all the research questions to be addressed, but also the experimental plans for each team. This included the employed didactical functionalities of the considered ICT tools, indications of the experimental settings, and the methods of data collection and analysis. During the whole experimental phase, the document was constantly updated, and shared among the involved persons which were periodically required to compare the different activities and reflections brought forward by all the teams

Formalising functional dependencies: The potential of technology

International audienceThis paper proposes " formalising functional dependencies " as an approach to address critical aspects of the potential of digital technologies for the teaching and learning of functions. This approach focuses on the role of the available tools in supporting students' transition from experiencing dependencies in terms of non-algebraic digital representations to expressing these dependencies formally. To illustrate the approach, data from two studies based on the use of two distinct computational systems are analysed. Key aspects of their potential include: work with dependencies at the level of magnitudes, specially designed functionalities and dynamic interplay between symbolic and non-symbolic representations of functions

Investigating two trainee teacher educators' transformations of the same resources in technology enhanced mathematics

International audienceWe address the documentational work of two trainee teacher educators in the context of their practicum in an in-service program concerning the use of digital tools in mathematics. Since they drew upon the same existing resources, we investigated the operational invariants – i.e., implicit aspects of their knowledge and epistemology underlying their designs – that influenced and differentiated their documentational work. The identified operational invariants were (a) their focal points during the observation of other teacher educators' classrooms, (b) the constrains and opportunities provided by the educational context, (c) their epistemologies regarding the role of technology in the teaching of mathematics as well as their conceptions of trainee teachers either 'as students' or 'of students'