Teachers' designs with the use of digital tools as a means of redefining their relationship with the mathematics curriculum

Abstract

The present article reports a study concerning the analysis of 19 activity plans (we call them ‘scenarios’) developed by mathematics teacher educators-in-training for the pedagogical use of digital tools. The development of these scenarios took place during their training program and was designed as an activity for increasing reflection, for expressing creative pedagogical ideas and for an active engagement in the design of curricula enriched with the use of technology. Our analysis showed that the trainee teacher educators deconstructed and reconstructed respective parts of the formal curriculum regarding the mathematical concepts they chose to embody in their scenarios. 1. Theoretical framework This article focuses on the relationship between teachers and curriculum, approached through the study of the teaching designs—in the form of scenarios—developed by mathematics teacher educators-in-training. The study took place in the context of an in-service educational program at the University of Athens. The program was part of a large-scale nationwide initiative of the Ministry of Education concerning teachers’ familiarization with the use of digital technologies for teaching and learning in their respective subjects. As for mathematics, the aim of the program was to provide the participants who were selected experienced mathematics teachers with methods, knowledge and experience in in-service teacher education and to educate them in the pedagogical uses of expressive digital media and communication technologies for the teaching and learning of mathematics. The Educational Technology Lab (ETL) had the responsibility to develop curricula for this program and the completion of training four educator groups in the University of Athens. The Greek educational system is characterized by a central national curriculum in which goals, concepts and activities are explicitly described. Despite existing efforts to implement an interdisciplinary curriculum, the teaching of extended material continues to be linear. The concepts are sometimes introduced with activities. However, there are few provided representations and, still, with