Reflective skills of students training to be mathematics teachers at primary schools within the context of open teaching situations — a research and teaching project

About the research project

In models of teachers' professional competencies, the reflective competence to cope with subject-specific tasks in the preparation and follow-up of lessons is given central importance. Reflection skills form a basis for the implementation of lessons and are also influenced by the specialist knowledge and subject-specific didactic knowledge acquired (cf. Lindmeier, 2011).

Another key component in this context is professional perception as the basis for professional action. After all, relevant teaching situations that are to be reflected upon must first be perceived in order to then interpret them and ultimately make decisions and weigh up alternatives on this basis.

In the "ProRef Maths" project, the reflective skills of primary school teacher trainees in mathematics are examined in the context of open teaching situations. This is to take place in requirement-related situations. To this end, students use their own video vignettes, which represent excerpts of their own teaching. In these teaching sequences, the students carry out open tasks (so-called "learning environments") with children in grades 1 to 4 at elementary school in Dresden. In addition, the video vignettes show the children's work processes as they complete the open-ended tasks.

In a so-called stimulated recall interview, which is based on their own video vignettes, the study participants reflect on their teaching activities and the children's observed learning processes. As part of the current inductive data analysis, the occasions for reflection that students primarily perceive in their own teaching situations are examined in more detail.

Initial results show that the students make a variety of theoretical as well as practical references:

• Describing and interpreting the students' learning and processing processes observed in the vignette
• Establishing links between these interpretations and their own teacher actions and deriving alternative and/or future teaching actions based on them
• Recourse to theoretical foundations for the design of naturally differentiating tasks for mathematics lessons
• The focus of attention of the study participants is, among other things, on the mathematical correctness of the observed work processes of the students, on methodological decisions made by the students themselves, teaching materials used, difficulties encountered by the students when working on the open task, social learning processes, etc.

Literature used: Lindmeier, A. (2011). Modeling and Measuring Knowledge and Competencies of Teachers. A Threefold Domain-Specific Structure Model for Mathematics. Münster: Waxmann.

If you have participated in my research project as a student and would like to find out more about the purpose and type of data processing, you can access the privacy policy here .

About the teaching project

The research project is being carried out as part of a teaching project on the cross-phase development of mathematical learning environments for elementary school in cooperation with the Teacher Training - Elementary Schools in Dresden.

The overarching aim of the teaching project is to combine the perspectives of lecturers at TU Dresden and seminar leaders at the training center in Dresden in the subject of mathematics on selected topics, such as natural differentiation. This is intended to reduce perceived discontinuities between theoretical references at the university and requirements in everyday school life ('practice shock').

The teaching project was first implemented as part of a research seminar in winter semester 22/23 and is now to be carried out every winter semester in the future.

The students and trainee teachers form 'partnerships' and jointly design open tasks, which are then tested in the actual classroom situation, taking into account the pupils' learning requirements. The trainee teachers take on the key role of a mentor to accompany and advise the students during the planning phase. The teaching project thus marks the start of cross-phase networking between the 1st and 2nd phases of training. Further information can be found in a short video we have produced.

Since the tests are also videotaped, the video vignettes mentioned in the "ProRef Math" project are created in the course of this. These are used in the subsequent stimulated recall interview with the project leader to reflect on the students' learning, thinking and understanding processes as well as their own teaching activities.

If you, as a parent, have consented to the collection of data about your child at the school and would like to find out more about the purpose and type of data processing, you can access the privacy policy here .