Teacher change: ideas emerging from a project for the teaching of university mathematics

Abstract

This paper reports the changes that occurred in the didactic approaches of three professors who participated in a project intended to develop new ways of teaching mathematics to second year university students. An enactivist perspective is used to address the process of change that emerged as a result from interactions during project meetings. We describe changes in the participants' actions by looking at data obtained from the meetings and the classrooms. Teachers were able to ‘see more’ and modify their teaching practices incorporating a more open and flexible approach in accordance to their structural state which depended on their previous history. Therefore, the results varied. It was possible to observe, however, similar changes in all members of the group which included the use of vocabulary from learning theories and the inclusion of in-depth reflections on teaching and learning.

Keywords:

• university mathematics
• teacher change
• university teachers
• enactivism

Acknowledgement

This project was partially supported by Asociación Mexicana de Cultura AC.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.