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Digital Technology and Mid-Adopting Teachers’ Professional Development: A Case Study

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The Mathematics Teacher in the Digital Era

Part of the book series: Mathematics Education in the Digital Era ((MEDE,volume 2))

Abstract

The integration of digital technology into secondary mathematics education is not yet a widespread success. As teachers are crucial players in this integration, an important challenge is not only to attract early adopters, but also to support mid-adopting teachers in their professional development on this point. The questions addressed in this Chapter are: which practices such mid-adopting teachers develop when starting to use technology in their mathematics classroom; and how these practices change over time while engaging in a project with colleagues and researchers. To answer these questions, theoretical notions of instrumental orchestration, TPACK and community of practice underpin the case study of two mathematics teachers from a group of twelve, who engaged in a project on technology-rich teaching. The data includes lesson observations, blogs and results from questionnaires. The results show the type of teaching practices the teachers develop and the changes in these practices. Even if these changes are modest and the impact of the community is limited, the teachers clearly became more confident in integrating technology in their teaching.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    See www.fi.uu.nl/dwo/en/.

  2. 2.

    See www.fi.uu.nl/dwo/en/.

  3. 3.

    We used Atlas ti, see www.atlasti.com.

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Acknowledgement

 We thank the participating teachers and their students for their collaboration, and Kennisnet for supporting the research study (project no. C/OZK/2131).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Freudenthal Institute for Science and Mathematics Education, Utrecht University, Utrecht, Netherlands

    Paul Drijvers, Sietske Tacoma, Amy Besamusca, Cora van den Heuvel, Michiel Doorman & Peter Boon

Authors
  1. Paul Drijvers
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  2. Sietske Tacoma
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  3. Amy Besamusca
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  4. Cora van den Heuvel
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  5. Michiel Doorman
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  6. Peter Boon
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Paul Drijvers .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. London Knowledge Lab Institute of Education, University of London, London, UK

    Alison Clark-Wilson

  2. Dipartimento di Matematica, Università di Torino, Turin, Italy

    Ornella Robutti

  3. Faculty of Education, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC, Canada

    Nathalie Sinclair

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Drijvers, P., Tacoma, S., Besamusca, A., van den Heuvel, C., Doorman, M., Boon, P. (2014). Digital Technology and Mid-Adopting Teachers’ Professional Development: A Case Study. In: Clark-Wilson, A., Robutti, O., Sinclair, N. (eds) The Mathematics Teacher in the Digital Era. Mathematics Education in the Digital Era, vol 2. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-4638-1_9

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