AmadEUs – analysis of didactic elements used in teaching situations in the subject of mathematics

Research-based design of video-vignettes to be used for developing the practical didactic skills of prospective mathematics teachers

The heart of the project is the investigation of didactic strategies used in mathematics teaching and how they affect specific teaching sequences with the goal of further developing and enhancing the practical didactic skills of prospective mathematics teachers. For this purpose university students in the secondary school mathematics teaching program are preparing high quality teaching sequences in their university seminars which they will test on groups of students from cooperating schools (AHS) at a maths lab which is being instituted as part of this project. The filmed video sequences represent the data which will be used for the planned analysis of the applied teaching strategies. 

Within the project the students are involved in the research in many ways – first of all, using a three-perspective model, surveys will be carried out among the participating university students and pupils (structured interviews) the answers to which will be categorized by the project team. Based on these categories, relevant scenes from the footage will be chosen and turned into short video clips. Using the so-called SHOWeD method (participatory research) the perspective of the students concerning these interesting scenes will be determined. The aims of the analysis are to reconstruct the respective didactic strategy used, determine what influence this strategy has on the students in this specific situation, and finally develop possible alternative didactic strategies. This analysis is based on theories of teachers’ competencies which are already established in the didactics of mathematics. Since the perspective of students has frequently been neglected in other didactic research projects, in this one the students and their views play an essential role in the investigation process.

Goals of the project are the establishment of the maths lab at the university of Vienna as a communication platform for researchers, university students, teachers and school students and using the developed video clips and analysis thereof in the pre- and in-service training of teachers.