Abstract:

Being able to analyse classroom situations is a key competence of mathematics teachers and an important aspect of teacher expertise which is also emphasised by the growing body of empirical research into teacher noticing. For building up and fostering such competence, representations of classroom practice (Buchbinder & Kuntze, 2008) have the advantage that they can be used repeatedly, in comparison to on-site classroom situations which never happen twice in the same way. Cartoon vignettes representing situations in the mathematics classroom have a particularly high potential for profession-related learning and reflection and can at the same time be combined with specific methodological possibilities, e.g., controlling for related aspects of complexity when designing related learning material. In comparison with video vignettes or vignettes in text format, cartoon vignettes can be seen as playing an intermediate role, combining an adjustable complexity with regard to situation context information and a high amount of design possibilities. As the cartoon vignette design mostly requires specific graphical skills, the support of a digital tool offers access to a wide-spread use of classroom cartoons in pre-service mathematics teacher education and in-service teacher professional development. The digital tool DIVER CREATE (DIVER is an acronym for “Designing and Investigating Vignettes in teacher Education and Research”) has been developed in the ERASMUS+ Project coReflect@maths and has been designed for facilitating collaborative reflection on classroom situations supported by cartoon vignettes. Throughout the development of the digital tool, users’ views on the tool and its potentials, as well as on the users’ experiences with the tool have played an important role.

So far, empirical research on users’ views of digital tools for representing classroom situations is scarce. This study hence focuses on the question which views users of the DIVER CREATE digital tool hold, including views on the motivation potential of the tool and views related to potential obstacles for the use of the digital tool. The views were collected from users with different degree of experience in both open ended and multiple-choice question formats. Correspondingly, both interpretive and quantitative methods were used. The empirical results show that a majority of the teachers showed positive views on the motivation potential, and there is evidence on positive expectancies related to their professional learning. Potential obstacles connected with the tool’s use were seen in particular related to the time necessary for representing classrooms in a prior version of DIVER CREATE in which pre-set classroom scenarios (adjustable classroom settings already filled with cartoon characters and graphical elements) had not yet been implemented. These findings were taken up in the follow-up development of the current DIVER CREATE version. In conclusion, the findings give first exploratory insight into views of mathematics teachers who have made first experience with digital support in professional learning with vignettes. The findings highlight the need for further empirical research into this area.

Keywords:

Representations of practice, digitally implemented vignettes, classroom cartoons, users' views, noticing.