Abstract:

The project coReflect@maths (co-funded by the EU in the framework of Erasmus+) focuses on promoting the cooperation and exchanging of good practices in the field of mathematics teachers’ university education and professional development. Six organisations from four different countries (Czech Republic, Germany, Spain and United Kingdom) participate in this project.

During the last years, the teacher educator groups from the different institutions have been developing learning environments and courses for their teacher training programs and the professional development of mathematics teachers with a common aspect: how to connect theoretical knowledge with mathematics teaching practice. The partners of this project have used representations of practice in different formats (e.g. text, video, cartoons) understood as a depiction of a classroom situation (e.g. a transcription of students’ answers to an activity, or a cartoon showing an interaction teacher-student) to promote pre-service and in-service teachers’ reflection and discussion of real-life contexts.

The participating groups have been involved in the design and use of vignettes in the teacher training programmes. A vignette, in this project, is formed by a representation of practice and some questions to guide the analysis of this representation of practice. In some cases, it also includes information with the theoretical knowledge required to interpret the representation of practice. Previous research has shown that using vignettes can foster pre- and in-service teachers’ reflections on teaching practice. Furthermore, vignettes can be used to facilitate teachers’ professional learning of knowledge related to the teaching of mathematics. Nevertheless, designing vignette-based learning environments requires not only considering how to connect theory and practice but also, overcoming language difficulties, and data protection issues with some available tools.

As a strategic partnership project, our aim is to develop a multilingual digital tool (DIVER Tool – Designing and Investigating Vignettes for Education and Research Tool) within the Moodle platform to provide a free and secure system, not only to bring together the good practice of using vignette established by the project partners, but also to create new vignette-based learning environments. The DIVER Tool will provide the opportunity for teacher educators to create, share, and collaboratively reflect on vignettes in different formats (text, cartoon, and video) and in four different languages (Czech, English, German, and Spanish). By the end of the project, materials for topics in pre- and in-service teachers training programs will be elaborated and made accessible by the project team.

With the support of the DIVER Tool, we aim to develop course concepts for pre-service and in-service teachers from different European countries allowing them to discuss, practice, and learn about key issues of teaching and learning mathematics, and also about different European mathematics classroom cultures. These course concepts will be evaluated using vignette-based test instruments. In this study, we will present the principles for the design of vignettes and an example of a vignette designed.

Keywords:

Erasmus+, vignette-based learning, representation of practice, linking theory-practice, exchange of good practice.