CHANGING PGCE STUDENTS’ MATHEMATICAL UNDERSTANDING THROUGH A COMMUNITY OF INQUIRY INTO PROBLEM SOLVING

Abstract

This paper reports on a project that involved a group of PGCE¹ students and their university tutors investigating mathematical problem solving in primary classrooms. We draw on Jaworski's (2003) model of a ‘community of inquiry’ in order to describe the way in which students’ and tutors’ involvement in the project developed and how this led to changes in conceptions of problem solving itself but also, more widely, in mathematics and teaching. In particular we discuss the learning metaphors of ‘acquisition’ and ‘participation’ (Sfard, 1998) and how these relate to practices in schools. Furthermore we consider how the students involved began to be sensitised to the implications of both metaphors.