DIGITAL CURRICULUM RESOURCES IN/FOR MATHEMATICS TEACHER LEARNING: A Documentational Approach Perspective

Abstract

The relations between teachers’ interactions with digital resources and teacher education have been the focus of mathematics education research for many years. This interest has been enhanced by the abundance of digital curriculum resources available for teachers and teacher educators; this is likely to lead to new phenomena in terms of teacher learning. The theoretical frame of the documentational approach to didactics has been developed to study these new phenomena. Drawing on selected research works, we illustrate the use of this approach to study teacher (and teacher educator) learning with digital resources in different settings. We consider settings where the aim of teacher education through the use of digital resources is explicit: the offer (by educational authorities) of educative resources, digital platforms in particular; or teacher education programs using digital resources. We also study the consequences, in terms of teacher learning, of daily interactions with digital resources: in individual teacher’s work, and their work in collectives. These interactions are intrinsically linked to teacher design. Digital resources offer new means for teacher design, which we regard as part of teacher documentation work. We claim that teachers require help and support to exploit this potential.