Teachers' attention to task's potential for encouraging classroom argumentative activity

Michal Ayalon (1) , Rina Hershkowitz (1)

1 The Weizmann Institute

This study investigated secondary school mathematics teachers’ attention to task’s potential for argumentative activity in the classroom. Analysis of the teachers’ choices of tasks and their explanations revealed categories that fall into two dimensions: (1) Attention to the mathematics in which the argumentative activity is embedded, focusing on three aspects: the mathematics inherent in the task; the mathematics related to the teaching sequence that the task is a part of; and meta-level principles of mathematics. (2) Attention to socio-cultural aspects related to the argumentative activity. Four attention-profiles of teachers were identified: Teachers who attended to both dimensions; teachers who were attentive only to the mathematics aspects inherent in the task; teachers who were attentive only to the socio-cultural dimension; and teachers who were attentive to neither of these dimensions.

Mots clés: Argumentative activity; teachers; attention; task

Domaines: Education; Histoire et perspectives sur les mathématiques [math.HO]

Michal Ayalon, Rina Hershkowitz. Teachers' attention to task's potential for encouraging classroom argumentative activity. CERME 9 - Ninth Congress of the European Society for Research in Mathematics Education, Charles University in Prague, Faculty of Education; ERME, Feb 2015, Prague, Czech Republic. pp.2982-2988. ⟨hal-01289713⟩