Fulfilling one of the commitments of Universidad de Chile, aimed to assist in the initial training of teachers, is that a group of researchers from the Centre for Mathematical Modeling at FCFM developed new mathematical textbooks that could guide both student teachers and to the academic trainers in modern mathematical topics. Also it was incorporated the Case Study Method, used in careers such as law, economics and medicine, considering it a tool that will help future teachers to integrate teaching and discipline.
This material, which will de launched on Thursday 2 June at the Aula Magna of the Faculty of Law at the University, is the work done through the Fondef project “Tools for the Training of Math Teachers in Secondary Education” led by academics and researchers of CMM Patricio Felmer, Leonor Varas, Salome Martínez, and Cristián Reyes.
“We hope these are tools that give confidence and mastery of knowledge to future teachers and also help the teaching career to focus better on their courses and to reformulate their curricula,” said Salome Martinez, Deputy Director of Monographs.
Deficiencies and needs
Through various studies, the project team found some deficiencies in the initial training of math teachers. The main one is that teachers do not integrate teaching with disciplinary knowledge. Moreover, they demonstrated, through analysis of curricula teaching careers, courses that had not had a clear objective or abstract content delivered.
The 14 monographs form an updated and modern library, which presents various issues related to applications of mathematics and mathematical modeling. Each textbook has contextualization, discussions and relevant historical evolution of concepts, challenging problems and exercises similar to those used in a school.
Salomé Martínez explains, there were considered the needs of future educators for the realization of these monographs. “This is a new material that allows these students to understand profoundly advanced mathematics and able to connect it with school mathematics. For a teacher the most important and interesting thing is how to use mathematics to understand the world around them and not to focus on specific methods, as would do an engineer.”
For the researcher another of the highlights in the realization of these textbooks is that they made every effort to develop a material that was relevant to students of pedagogy. “The monographs are full of contextualization, with examples that are unique to their experience and very close to what the teacher is going to have to teach. Of course with a grater depth that will help them to appropriate the content in a natural way.”
A new methodology
In addition to the collection, a methodology of case study was developed and conducted by Cristián Reyes. This tool includes classroom situations, typical of the teaching of the discipline, giving prospective teachers the opportunity to discuss and reflect in front of a professional dilemma focused on math teaching. This experience helps them to integrate mathematics with pedagogy, the theoretical with the practical, resulting in, among other benefits, confidence in teaching students.
Both monographs and the Case Study Methodology were subjected to validation and piloting activities that allowed them to both authors and the research team, gathering suggestions and opinions.
Piloting Case Methodology also confirmed what the essential problem was: the lack of integration between pedagogical and disciplinary knowledge. As detailed Reyes, this methodology was applied to courses in third, fourth and fifth teaching careers of six universities, students facing an educational dilemma. “It was through this experience that teachers who were in charge of this courses realized that the students were completely lost, either because they had very unclear mathematical concepts or because they had never integrated pedagogy and discipline. For teaching careers was very important to understand that the way they were training their students, was inappropriate, “says the researcher.
Thanks to the pilot, the researcher explained, some institutions have already included this methodology in their teaching careers curricula, such as the University of Concepción. ” La Universidad Católica de Valparaíso, for example, even included it in the program of master and doctorate in mathematics education.”
Cooperation networks
The Fondef project “Tools for the Training of Math Teachers in Secondary Education” collaborated, among others mathematicians engaged leading international research and have the potential to make an important contribution to the school mathematics education.
Participation in this project with more than 40 scholars from 10 universities also allowed creating a bridge, until now almost nonexistent, between mathematicians and mathematics educators. The collection of monographs and the textbook of case studies were distributed to all libraries in the country and will also be available electronically.
