Abstract:

Students and professionals with background in technical subjects are increasingly opting for a teaching career as a result of a conscious plan from the Swedish government to facilitate transition and completion of a teaching degree (SOU2019:4). One of the expected benefits from this measure is that students with broader academical and professional experiences could bring that knowledge into their future teaching practice and share it with in-service teachers during their practicum. The purpose of this study is to understand the subjectivities and practices of teachers and pre-service teachers as they engage in professional development activities together. Michel de Certeau’s theory on practices of everyday life serves as a lens for bringing forward the tensions and opportunities that appear in cooperative learning settings within external policy constrains.

Data were collected from observations in three different peer development meetings in which mathematics teachers and pre-service teachers gathered to learn computer programming didactics. The pre-service teachers in this study had comprehensive background in computer programming whereas most teachers had scarcely programmed before. Normally a meeting started with short presentations from each teacher about a previously assigned programming task that they had tried out during a mathematics lesson and continued with comments and reflections from the rest of the group. Finally, a new programming method was introduced, and a related task was proposed for teachers to integrate in their upcoming lessons. The interventions during those meetings were analyzed in terms of the strategies that conform the dialogue and the tactics to which teachers and pre-service teachers resort in those situations. The strategy, from the school principal was to promote programming knowledge by designating a teacher to lead the peer learning discussions, allotting time for the meetings and in one case, treating the participants to a sweet snack. Teachers’ and pre-service teachers’ interventions during the meeting can be described in terms of tactics that allow them to make their own space within these structures. Some teachers resorted to avoidance tactics to escape reporting about their programming assignment, such as postponing it to future meetings or claiming time constrains, while other considered programming activities as intruders that obstructed their mathematics lessons and introduced moments of struggle, deception, confrontation and resignation. Laughter was also a reaction that could be classified as tactical as it accentuated teachers’ position against programming in mathematics and thus, produced difference and a distance to the strategies of those enforcing it. Pre-service teachers were prone to other “tactics of the mind” such as criticizing the idea of programming in mathematics or showing how programming should really be done. They proposed entertaining programming exercises that could be fun for the pupils but at the same time diverted attention from the mathematical issues at hand, prioritizing colorful demonstrations over students’ chances to learn mathematics from the activity. They were keen to let their examples became a source of amusement to interact socially with their peers during the meeting. In this way, teachers and pre-service teachers tried to adapt the purpose of the cooperative learning activity to their own interests and their own rules.

Keywords:

Work integrated Learning, Cooperative learning, programming in mathematics, pre-service teachers education, k-12 education, teacher certification.