Professional Learning Opportunities Regarding the Concept of Function in a Practice-based Teacher Education Program
André Luis Trevisan 1 * , Alessandro Jacques Ribeiro 2, João Pedro da Ponte 3
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1 Universidade Tecnológica Federal do Paraná, Londrina/PR, BRAZIL2 Universidade Federal do ABC, Santo André/SP, BRAZIL3 Instituto de Educação, Universidade de Lisboa, PORTUGAL* Corresponding Author

Abstract

Teachers’ professional knowledge has been an active area in the field of mathematics education research in the last decades, but we still know very little regarding how teachers learn. This article aims to identify learning opportunities experienced by two teachers regarding mathematical and didactical knowledge for the teaching of function, in a context of practice-based learning. To this end, we analyze data from a practice-based teacher education program based on a cycle that incorporates three segments of teachers’ practice: planning, enacting and reflecting on a high school mathematics lesson, conducted from the perspective of inquiry-based teaching. We analyze two strands of the professional knowledge mobilized by the teachers, namely (i) the mathematics knowledge for teaching function, (ii) the knowledge for teaching practice, regarding function. The results indicate learning opportunities that emerged from the work done, regarding the use of the classroom as a teaching professional learning environment: the search for ways to encourage students to participate in the discussions; the recognition of the potential of the chosen lesson plan for the covariational approach , the importance of organizing mathematical discussion practices for students’ learning, organizing the time devoted to whole-class discussions and preparing for leading them and the potential of a class developed from the perspective of inquiry-based teaching.

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This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Article Type: Research Article

INT ELECT J MATH ED, Volume 15, Issue 2, May 2020, Article No: em0563

https://doi.org/10.29333/iejme/6256

Publication date: 28 Oct 2019

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Article Downloads: 2473

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