Helena Rocha

MATHEMATICS TEACHING IN EDUCATION AND TRAINING COURSES
H. Rocha

Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia (PORTUGAL)

Education and Training Courses have been specifically designed to the high number of young people in a situation of school dropout and in transition to working life, particularly those who enter the labor market early with insufficient levels of schooling and professional training. Mathematics is one of the curriculum components of these courses, for its contribution to the exercise of citizenship in a democratic society. Being an important part of the cultural legacy of our society is too often seen by students as a source of exclusion. It is known that young people who enter these courses often had an experience of underachievement in the discipline, what justifies that motivating students is at once the great challenge faced by the teacher. The program suggests taking a more concrete and linked to reality approach, allowing students to learn to recognize the mathematics in the world around them and using technology to promote that learning. However, it is the teacher who is responsible for managing its implementation, shaping the learning situations and integrating them in a coherent and articulated way in the specific course that students attend. In what concerns to assessment, the program also takes into account the usual characteristics of the students. Thus, the assessment includes a strong appreciation of students’ work, its presentation and discussion and further improvement of that work. The directions given to the teacher diverge from the traditional option of the evaluation test, providing guidelines to the form that each evaluation can take depending on the contents in study. However, once again, the teacher's role in curriculum management is not neglected, being valued the adequacy of proposals to the characteristics of the students.
The study presented here had as its main goal to analyze and understand the choices made by the teacher during the different stages of his practice, giving attention to the dilemmas he faced and to the reasons he took into account when making decisions.

The study adopts a qualitative and interpretative methodological approach, undertaking one teacher case study. Data collection included semi-structured interviews, classroom observation and document collection. Data analysis was based on the evidence gathered in the light of the problem under study.

The conclusions of the study point to the important role of technology and suggest that the reduction of prerequisites, the intention of taking into account the students’ interests and the desire of improving students culture is central in what concerns to task selection; while the active involvement of students characterized the implementation of the classes. The dilemmas faced by the teacher focus mainly on the relative importance and on the demanding level that he should give to each content, as well as the articulation that he should promote between formal and intuitive knowledge. In what concerns to assessment, the results achieved highlight the impact that students ideas can have on teacher’s practice, conducting to the inclusion of tests as an assessment element, against the teacher’s intentions.

keywords: education and training courses, mathematics, innovation, technology.

The assessment and the role it should be assumed by the summative and formative component are often a reason for discussion. It is therefore important to understand how the teacher assessment practices are characterized and what influences them. That is, identify aspects taken into account when planning assessment; the (dis)continuities between assessment and learning; the divergences/consonances between assessment planned and implemented. The conclusions reached point to a strong influence of peers, to the assessment criteria of the school and to the students’ characteristics, in a scenario where the test is the dominant element in assessment.

Abstract. The recognition of the potential of technology for the teaching
and learning of mathematics has encouraged many studies around
technology. In all these studies, the integration, the utilization or the use of
technology is (or should be) necessarily an important element. In this paper
I consider the most common terminologies present in research and the
meaning assigned to them, based on a research review and on the analysis
of the studies presented in SIEM over the last five years. The conclusions
reached suggest a diversity of understandings and a lack of explicitness of
these understandings. However, different types of technology use seem to be
recognized, usually associated with continuity or change of practices. The
teacher's role and a more directive or more student-centered approach,
associated with a change in the proposed tasks, are also mentioned. In what
concerns to the terminology adopted, there is great diversity, with cases of
differentiation in terms of some of the elements listed and cases of adoption
of multiple terms with apparently identical meanings.

Resumo. O reconhecimento das potencialidades da tecnologia para o
ensino e aprendizagem da Matemática tem motivado diversos estudos em
torno da tecnologia. Em todos eles a integração, a utilização ou o uso que é
feito da tecnologia é (ou deveria ser) necessariamente um elemento
importante. Neste artigo procuro ponderar as terminologias mais comuns
na investigação e o significado que lhes é atribuído, partindo de uma
revisão de literatura e analisando os estudos apresentados no SIEM nos
últimos cinco anos. As conclusões alcançadas apontam para uma
diversidade de entendimentos e para uma ausência de explicitação desses
entendimentos. Ainda assim, parecem ser reconhecidos diferentes tipos de
utilização da tecnologia, geralmente associados à manutenção ou alteração
das anteriores práticas. O papel do professor e o assumir de uma postura
mais diretiva ou mais centrada no aluno, associada a uma alteração
relativamente às tarefas propostas, são igualmente referidos. Quanto à
terminologia adotada, a diversidade é grande, com casos de diferenciação
em função de alguns dos elementos referidos e com casos de adoção de
múltiplos termos aparentemente com significados idênticos.

The usual difficulties of students regarding the choice of an appropriate window when using the graphing calculator in the study of functions and the importance of the teachers’ knowledge to overcoming them, led to this study. The main goal was to characterize the way teachers address the viewing window in the classroom, trying to infer aspects of the Knowledge for Teaching Mathematics with Technology that can justify that practice. The conclusions reached point to the importance of a set of specific knowledge where I highlight the knowledge of the students’ difficulties, the knowledge of mathematical content necessary to understand the impact of the viewing window on the graphic, and the knowledge of teaching strategies that address both the students’ difficulties and the relevant mathematical knowledge.

The different representations of functions are assumed as central on the development of the concept of function. Being widely recognized the complexity of this concept, the different representations allow the student to understand in a representation what could not be understood in another representation. And the integration of technology into the teaching and learning process provides an easy and quick way to access different representations. This study intends to analyse the understanding of upper secondary students about the information transmitted by each of the representations of functions usually available on technology. Specifically, it intends to understand which transitions between representations are more easily understood by the students and which ones are more difficult to perform. It also intended to identify some aspects that may contribute to this. This study adopts a quantitative methodology in which the answers given by a class to a test focused on the transition from one representation to another are analysed; and a qualitative methodology based on interviews to three of the students in the class, as a way of seeking comprehension about their answers. The results achieved suggest a greater ease of understanding associated to the graphical representation and a greater difficulty associated to the tabular representation. The reasons for this seem to be related to the specific characteristics of each representation, but fundamentally with aspects related to the experiences lived by the students on the mathematics classes, being the integration of technology an influence not to neglect.

Research has highlighted the potential of technology to transform the teaching of Mathematics, but also the relevance of teachers and their professional knowledge. In this article, a qualitative methodology is adopted and two episodes of the practice of one teacher are analyzed in the scope of the study of functions in the 10th grade, based on the model of Knowledge for Teaching Mathematics with Technology (KTMT). The goal is to characterize the teacher's knowledge from her practice, simultaneously understanding how this contributes to promoting the development of the teacher's knowledge. The conclusions reached show the importance of including in the KTMT conception aspects highlighted by the research on technology integration. These aspects are determinant to characterize the teacher's knowledge. They also show the relevance of the practice for the development of the teacher's knowledge and the dynamic character of the vision of knowledge offered by KTMT.

Reconhecendo o potencial do jogo para a aprendizagem matemática, este estudo pretende analisar o envolvimento e as aprendizagens dos alunos, com o objectivo de caracterizar os jogos com maior potencial para os promover.
Adoptando uma metodologia de índole qualitativa e envolvendo a realização de estudos de caso sobre alunos do 7.ºano, as conclusões alcançadas sugerem que os jogos de computador são particularmente apelativos para os alunos. Contudo, as características determinantes para o envolvimento dos alunos e consequente promoção da aprendizagem prendem-se com a possibilidade de jogar com diferentes níveis de conhecimento e com a obtenção de bons resultados no jogo.

This study focus on the different representations provided by graphing calculators, intending to characterize how the teacher uses and integrates them on the process of teaching and learning functions at the secondary level. The methodology adopted is qualitative and interpretative, undertaking two case studies. The main conclusions point to different levels of flexibility in the use of the different representations depending on the teacher, but suggest a strong preference for the graphical and the algebraic representations, a use of the numerical representation based on the graph of the function and a total lack of use of the tabular representation.

The teacher’s knowledge has long been viewed as a strong influence on the students’ learning. Several authors have sought to develop procedures to assess this knowledge, but this has proved to be a complex task. In this paper I present an outline of a conceptualization to analyze the teacher's knowledge, based on the model of the Knowledge for Teaching Mathematics with Technology (KTMT) and a set of tasks. These tasks are chosen by the teacher among the ones he prepared for his students taking into account the potential of the tasks to take advantage of the technology’s potential. The analyze of the teacher’s KTMT is based on the characteristics of the tasks chosen by the teacher; the balance established between the representations provided by the technology that the tasks advocate; the way how the tasks pay attention to the new issue of seeking for a suitable viewing window; and also the way how the tasks take into account the expectable difficulties of the students in the process of looking for the window.

Neste estudo analisamos as perceções que professores do 3.º ciclo e do ensino secundário têm da sua prática no âmbito do ensino de Funções, com o objetivo de as caracterizar e de identificar as diferenças existentes entre estes dois grupos de professores. Um aspeto particularmente relevante se tivermos em conta que se tratam de dois grupos de professores com formações iniciais idênticas. Adotamos uma metodologia mista, com uma vertente quantitativa apoiada na aplicação de questionários e uma vertente qualitativa baseada na realização de entrevistas. As principais conclusões alcançadas apontam para semelhanças nas perceções dos professores, mas também para algumas diferenças em função do ciclo de ensino. Na planificação das aulas os manuais são amplamente utilizados, mas de forma diferente consoante o ciclo de ensino do professor. Os professores de ambos os ciclos de ensino estabelecem conexões entre diferentes representações, mas valorizam de diferentes formas as representações disponíveis. O envolvimento dos alunos nas atividades da aula é outro aspeto destacado pelos professores, mas uma vez mais existem diferenças. Na avaliação o recurso ao teste é enfatizado pelos dois grupos de professores, mas já existem diferenças quanto à importância atribuída ao trabalho de grupo.

The present study aims to understand the potentialities and implications,
to the teacher and her practice, of the use of formative assessment with the support
of educational technology.
Regarding the research methodology, this study is part of the research on own
practice. The participants were the teacher, who was simultaneously a researcher,
and the students of a 9th grade class.
In the course of this experience it was found that the use of formative assessment
allows, on the one hand, the student to realize what he manages to understand, and
what he has to do to overcome what are less consolidated parts of the content in
study; and, on the other, the teacher to detect in a timely manner the difficulties of
the student and to change strategies to allow the student to overcome his difficulties.
The lack of time, the difficulties in managing the curriculum and the existence of
national exams are three of the main obstacles mentioned by the teachers for the
non-realization of formative assessment. In this experience it was found that the use
of new technologies turns possible to overcome these limitations.
This type of assessment had a very positive impact on teacher’s practice and in the
learning of the students.
Keywords: assessment; formative assessment; new technologies.