Abstract:

Current curriculum guidelines for teaching mathematics recommend the use of digital technologies as an essential resource in students learning to help them to attribute meaning to mathematical ideas, to reason and to communicate their thinking.

To answer to these demands, it is important for 21st century teachers to be able to create learning environments that take advantage of the wide accessibility and potential of these technologies to explore mathematical ideas. To do so, future teachers must develop deep knowledge regarding teaching and learning Mathematics with technology.

To reach this goal, according to Mishra and Koehler (2006), it is necessary that the initial training programs foster the development of the Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge - TPACK of prospective teachers (PTs), helping them to acquire experience to teach Mathematics with the effective help of technologies in their future practices. Within this context, preservice teachers have opportunities to: plan, organize, criticize and develop abstract ideas from specific content, specific needs of the student and specific classroom situations, while considering the possibilities and limitations of digital technologies (Niess, 2012).

In this regard, we considered essential to carry out this study that describes an innovative preservice teacher education experience aiming to assist middle school and secondary PTs of mathematics in developing TPACK knowledge to create learning environments that take advantage of emerging technology into their future school activities. The goal then focuses on analysing the evidenced challenges and benefits for prospective teachers’ TPACK, when engaging them in elaborate detailed lesson plans focus on tasks integrating technology, pedagogy and subject matters, in accordance with the mathematics curriculum, and their justifications for the taken options.

The data analysis focuses on the lesson plans that the PTs groups have elaborated to promote, in an integrated way, the articulation of pedagogical, technological, and content knowledge, and their justifications for the options taken in the training course. The results of the qualitative analysis revealed positive knowledge of PTs´ TPACK in diverse dimensions and their recognition that the integration of technology in learning scenario has educational effectiveness and motivate students to learn.

This study therefore intends to contribute to the scarce investigation, particularly in Portugal, about initial teacher training experiences that promote the TPACK of mathematics prospective teachers.

Keywords:

Mathematics, TPACK, Pre-service teacher education.