“You can learn a lot, a lot by watching a class.” With these words, Salomé Martínez, a researcher at the Universidad de Chile Center for Mathematical Modeling (CMM), summarizes the influence that Matemática en aula, docentes en acción book will have in training of pre-service teachers.
The multimedia material published by Ediciones SM delivers practical activities around video analysis of actual lessons taught by math teachers across the country. The documentation of the teacher’s work is unprecedented in Chile and get the pre-service teacher closer to the reality of math teaching in school, says Martinez, “to see that contact with the classroom that is so important for their future teaching.”
In addition to the 86 videos, the material includes more than 90 learning activities tested at 15 universities for more than 800 students of Education. Its design considered real experiences of use, knowledge of academics, the experience of Education faculties, and cutting-edge research. The team in charge was composed by experts in mathematics and education, psychologists, and teachers of the Chilean education system.
“This type of project requires a partnership between the players of the school system: academics, teachers, teacher educators, mathematicians, etc. And it is the kind of alliances we would like more often,” says Carlos Henriquez, from Chilean Agency for Quality Education. “Because students are in the center of this work.”
In the analysis of the videos you can see how teachers manage classroom climate, but also the children’s responses and strategies used.
“We knew about good practices of teachers, but we wanted to understand how they were managed,” says Andres Ortiz, a professor at Universidad de Concepción Faculty of Education.
The researcher points out the publication answers to demand from Education students who need to know the problems and failures of the education system, but also what teachers are doing well. Elizabeth Moreno, a teacher at Colegio San Bernardo Abad interviewed for the project. “I would have loved to have this material during my training,” she concludes.
