Using information and communications technology to support interactive teaching and learning on a secondary mathematics initial teacher training course

Abstract

An open and distance learning version of the full-time mathematics Postgraduate Certificate of Education (PGCE) course has been developed and trialled at the University of Wales Swansea. This was a part of a larger collaborative project, ‘HATT, 2000’ between the constituent colleges of the University of Wales which aimed to use the affordances of information and communications technology to enhance PGCE programmes and to widen access to teacher training in Wales. The project made use of conferencing email, web-based bulletin boards and streaming video to provide an alternative to some of the usual college-based elements of the course. This article discusses the pedagogical principles underpinning the design of the PGCE mathematics course, and focuses on the changes in the learning discourse arising from the affordances of the technology.