University Teachers’ Resources Systems and Documents

Abstract

Mathematics teachers interact with resources of various kinds in their work in and out of class. The documentational approach of didactics is a theoretical approach that has been elaborated to investigate these interactions and their consequences in terms of teachers’ practice and teachers’ beliefs in particular. According to this approach, using resources teachers develop documents, encompassing these resources and a scheme of use; they also develop structured documents systems and resources systems. I interviewed six university teachers in France and collected the resources they used and designed. Drawing on these data I analyzed their documents and their resources systems, focusing on the features of resources use that appear specific to the university (rather than secondary school) context. I observed that lecturers can develop important agency in the design and use of teaching resources. On the other hand, PhD students starting to teach seem to conform their teaching to ready-made resources; nevertheless, their personal resources and beliefs intervened in their documentation work. Resources and beliefs deriving from the lecturers’ research can also influence the development of documents and thus contribute to shaping the mathematics taught.