Abstract:

The relevance and accessibility of digital technology in society are growing, which is why educators need to increasingly decide which technological tools reveal the potential to be integrated into their teaching practices. Those decision-making skills need to be developed and evaluated especially for pre-service mathematics teachers.

The Portuguese school curriculum for mathematics basic education (Grades 1-9) states that technological tools should be considered unavoidable and powerful resources for the teaching and learning of Mathematics. These guidelines show the need to analyze the preparation of the pre-service teachers to use that tools in teaching activities to achieve the curricular goals.

This paper reports an experience developed with 15 pre-service elementary teachers at the University of Madeira, Portugal. During the course of Didactics of Mathematics, pre-service teachers are involved in several activities to learn about teaching strategies and methodologies to teach mathematical contents and abilities to students in pre-primary and primary education. Learning Scenarios are used by pre-service teachers as a tool to plan teaching activities. Central aspects, such as the role of the teacher and the student, the nature of the learning tasks, the potential of resources and materials, the nature of mathematical knowledge, the internal and external connections in mathematics, and instruments and techniques for assessing students’ learning, are discussed as pre-service teachers design learning scenarios in the course.

The research aims to understand how the design of learning scenarios, based on an instrumental approach, contributes to the development of pre-service teachers’ competence in planning teaching activities including technology to foster mathematics learning. The instrumental approach will be used in this paper to analyze a specific learning scenario in which pre-service primary teachers exploit the semiotic potential of robotics.

Keywords:

Mathematics learning, Semiotic Potential, Learning Scenarios, Pre-service teachers.