Communication in exploratory teaching: The professional vision of preservice mathematics teachers

Abstract

The present study aims to understand the professional vision about the communication in Exploratory Teaching developed by a group of preservice mathematics teachers' (PTs) in an initial teacher education course. The context of this study has as central element the use of a multimedia case that, among other media, uses the video to portray episodes of a Mathematics class in the Exploratory Teaching perspective. The data of this qualitative research come from the PTs' written responses in small groups and the joint discussions in teacher education sessions focused on the case analysis. The results show that the PTs noticed the following communication aspects: I) the promotion of dialogic interactions by the protagonist teacher in the case regarding the development of the mathematical task by the students; and ii) the teacher's feedback based on the students' responses to the development of the mathematical activity. The recognition of these aspects, and the ways of reasoning about them reveal the development of the PTs' professional vision.