Abstract:

Improving students' learning in mathematics is one of the main goals of the Ministry of Education in East Timor. Following international guidelines, the most recent curriculum orientations push teachers to provide students with rich learning experiences, stressing mathematical connections to other areas of knowledge and students’ lives. But the success of mathematics education in East Timor depends on the teachers' empowerment to promote such learning. In 2015, the Ministry of Education published the Manuál Prátika Matemátika (MPM), which means Practical Mathematics Textbook, aiming at supporting teachers to build more practical learning environments, emphasizing an inquiry-based approach and mathematical connections to the real world, while taking the most of the rich Timorese cultural heritage to make learning more meaningful. The tasks in MPM are basically problems and mathematical explorations, involving several curricular topics for basic education (students aged 12 to 14 years-old). They should be worked in close articulation with students’ mathematics textbook, in collaborative work settings and involving collective discussions of strategies and results.
Following a qualitative and interpretative approach, we looked to understand how the mathematics teachers in East Timor are responding to the challenges raised by the latest curricular reforms, focusing on how they are articulating the students’ textbook and MPM.

Our research questions were:
1) What are the teachers’ perspectives about MPM?
2) How do the teachers articulate the students’ textbook and MPM? and 3) What challenges do teachers face in such an articulation, and how do they overcome them? Eight teachers from a total of three schools in the Dili district (a public, a catholic, and a private school) participated in the study. The data collected included field notes from the observation of 14 lessons, and transcripts of semi-structured interviews to all teachers.

Globally, teachers perceive the MPM as a valuable resource to improve the learning experiences they provide the students with, emphasizing the nature and real-world connection of the tasks in MPM and the accessibility of its language as facilitators of a deeper understanding of mathematics. Teachers use both resources to prepare their lessons. But few conduct teaching in an inquiry-based approach, making mathematical concepts and processes emerge from the work on the tasks of MPM, and using the students’ textbook for consolidation. In most cases, the tasks in MPM served to apply acquired knowledge rather than to build (new) mathematical knowledge.
Teachers’ collaborative work helps in improving their own mathematical knowledge, which is not solid and, added to a low command of the Portuguese language, hinders them from enacting an inquiry-based teaching. Preparing some students to tutor their classmates during practical work helps fighting the excessive number of students per class. Using the outdoors fights the lack of logistical conditions to carry out practical work. The struggle against lack of time to do that work and conduct discussions has led teachers to distort the aims of MPM, avoiding these moments or giving personal demonstrations of the work proposed the MPM, rather than having the students mathematically engaged with those tasks. This (still ongoing) study has suggested several areas of intervention in continuous education, especially regarding teachers’ mathematical and didactical knowledge.

Keywords:

Mathematics, connections, curriculum, tasks, teaching, textbooks.