ICME 11 Proceedings

Exploring and investigating in

mathematics teaching and learning

João Pedro da Ponte, Universidade de Lisboa, [email protected]

ABSTRACT

This paper assumes that investigating, exploring and solving problems are
central elements of the mathematical activity. It presents examples of students
investigating mathematics that illustrate important aspects of an exploratory
approach to mathematics teaching and its consequences to mathematics learn-
ing. This approach depends on the nature of tasks and on the roles of teachers
and students in the classroom. It requires an overall organization of content and
processes in meaningful mathematics teaching units. This kind of teaching is
rather demanding and teachers’ professional competence in carrying it may be
developed by collaborating, researching our own practice and getting involved
in the professional community. The paper analyses the relationships of investi-
gating, teaching, and learning, arguing that, as students explore and investigate
mathematics, teachers profit in investigating their own practice in professional
collaborative settings.

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Teaching mathematics as a finished product has always been problematic. For many
students, this subject is meaningless and it not worthwhile to make an effort to
learn it. Others, striving to survive, develop partial meanings that often conceal
deep misconceptions. For a long time, mathematicians and mathematics teachers
have tried to find alternative ways of presenting mathematics to students. One of the
most promising of such ways is to regard mathematics as an activity (Freudenthal,
1973) and emphasizing exploring and investigating mathematics situations.

1. INVESTIGATING AS A KEY FEATURE OF THE MATHEMATICS

ACTIVITY

There are many perspectives about mathematics. Most dictionaries present this
subject as the “science of number and form” (Davis & Hersh, 1980). For many
mathematicians, it is the “science of proof”. This is the notion that Bertrand
Russell had in mind when he said: “mathematics is the subject in which we
never know what we are talking about, nor whether what we are saying is true”
(Kline, 1974, p. 462). Jean Dieudonné put the same idea in a shorter way: “qui
dit mathématiques, dit demonstration”. The structuralist movement of the first
half of the twentieth century encouraged the view of mathematics as the “sci-
ence of structures”, and that framed the Bourbaki program and influenced a
deep educational reform in the 1960s known as “modern mathematics”. Still
another view claims that mathematics is best described as the “science of pat-
terns”, aiming to describe, classify and explain patterns in number, data, forms,
organizations, and relations (Steen, 1990).
When we think about mathematics we may focus on the mathemati-
cal concepts or on the body of knowledge encapsulated in articles and books.
We form an image of a complex building or of a tree with many branches – in
any case, a finished product. Alternatively, we may focus on the activity of peo-
ple doing mathematics. Regarded in this way, mathematics is indeed a dynamic
science. That is captured by George Pólya (1945), who says “mathematics has
two faces; it is the rigorous science of Euclid, but it also something else [...]
Mathematics in the making appears as an experimental, inductive science” (p.
vii). That is also sustained by Irme Lakatos (1978) who states that mathematics
“does not develop through monotonous growing of the number of theorems
unquestionably established but through the increasing improvement of conjec-
tures by speculation and critique, by the logic of proofs and refutations” (p. 18).

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Mathematics can be an interesting and involving activity not only

for the mathematician but also for the teacher and the student. Singh (1998)
refers that Andrew Wiles, now famous for his proof of a long standing theo-
rem, recalls the role of his teacher in getting him involved in mathematical
explorations:

Since I found for the first time Fermat’s Last Theorem, when I was a child, this
has been a major passion... I had a high school teacher who did research in
mathematics and gave me a book on number theory and provided some hints
on how to attack it. To begin with, I started from the hypothesis that Fermat
did not know much more mathematics than me... (p. 93)

Another mathematician, Jacques Hadamard (1945) states that there is no major

difference in the mathematical activity of a student and a mathematician when
they are working on challenging mathematical situations:

Between the work of the student who tries to solve a problem in geometry
or algebra and a work of invention [of a mathematician], one can say that
there is only a difference in degree, a difference of level, both works being of
a similar nature (p. 104).

Investigating in mathematics is finding out about some issue for which we do

not know the answer. It includes the formulation of questions, often of many
related questions that evolve as the work proceeds. It also involves the produc-
tion, testing and refinement of conjectures about those questions. And finally, it
involves proving and communicating results. In mathematics, the starting point
for an investigation may be a mathematical or a non-mathematical situation
from other sciences, technology, social organization, or daily life. As we try to
get a better perception of the situation, we are “exploring” it. Later, when our
question is clearly formulated and drives all our work, we may say that we have
a “problem”. Carrying out a mathematical investigation involves conscious and
unconscious processes, aesthetic sensibility, and connections and analogies
with mathematical and non-mathematical situations. It is undertaken in differ-
ent ways by people with different cognitive styles – analytic, visual, conceptual
(Burton, 2001; Davis & Hersh, 1980). But it is for all of them an involving and
rewarding activity.

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2. STUDENTS INVESTIGATING MATHEMATICS IN THE

CLASSROOM

Let us consider some examples of students working as mathematics researchers.

Example 1.Working with numbers

The first example comes from a class led by Irene Segurado, a grade 5 teacher
working with 10 year old students (see Ponte, Oliveira, Cunha & Segurado,
1998). The task is the following:

1. Write in column the 20 first multiples of 5.

2. Look at the digits of the units and tens. Do you find any patterns?
3. Now investigate what happens with the multiples of 4 and 6.
4. Investigate with other multiples.

This task was presented at the beginning of a 50-minute class. The teacher had
planned for group work, but she found the students very agitated at the begin-
ning of the class and decided to work instead with the class as a whole. She
asked the students for the multiples of 5 and wrote them on the board. The
students began looking for patterns:
Tatiana, raising her arm, answered quickly: The units’ digit is always 0 or 5,
and that was accepted by her colleagues, echoing around the room: it is always
0, 5, 0, 5...

Teacher: What else?

Octávio, with a happy face: The tens digit repeats itself: 0-0, 1-1, 2-2, 3-3...
Carlos agitated: I discovered something else... May I explain at the blackboard? (...)
At the blackboard, he continued: 0 with 5 is 5, 0 with 0 is 0, 1 with 5 is 6, 1
with 0 is 1, 2 with 5 is 7, 2 with 0 is 2, 3 with 5 is 8, are you getting it? There’s a sequence. It’s 5,
it jumps one, it’s 6, jumps one, it’s 7... Or it’s 0, jumps one, it’s 1, jumps one, it’s 2... (Ponte et al.,
1998, pp. 68-69)

We see that the students were able to identify different kinds of patterns. They
noticed simple repetition patterns (such as 0 5 0 5 ...) and more complex pat-
terns combining linear growth and repetition (such as 1 1 2 2 3 3 …). They
also identified linear patterns as subsequences of rather complex patterns (0 5
1 6 2 7 3 8 …).

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The class also analyzed patterns in the multiples of 4. Then, they turned to
the multiples of 6 that were put in a column alongside with the multiples of 5 and 4.

0 0 0
5 4 6
10 8 12
15 12 18
20 16 24
25 20 30
30 24 36
35 28 42
40 32 48
45 36 54
50 40 60
55 44 66
60 48 72
65 52 78
70 56 84
75 60 90
80 64 96
85 68 102
90 72 108

Students’ discoveries were coming in bunches. They were rather excited, thus
creating some difficulties to the teacher in recording and systematizing their
contributions:

The units’ digit is always 0, 6, 2, 8 and 4.

The units’ digit is always even.
The tens’ digit does not repeat from 5 in 5.

The teacher tried to handle this enthusiasm: Take it easy! Let us verify if what your col-
league said is true. Attention! Look! Look how interesting what your colleague discovered! Suddenly,
Sónia said: There are the same digits that for the multiples of 4. Even before this statement
made any sense to the teacher, Vânia continued: But they are in a different order. The
teacher figured out that the students were comparing the multiples of 4 and 6,
and she indicated that to the class. Other students went on:

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It also begins with 0.

The other digits are in a different order.
There are multiples of 4 that are also multiples of 6.
The multiples of 6, beginning at 12, are alternately also multiples of 4.

The students expressed their generalizations in natural language. They could

find again complex repetition patterns (such as 8 2 6 0 4 8 2 6 0 4 8…) and,
more interesting, they were able to compare features of different patterns. In
this activity they developed their number sense, they got a better grasp of the
behaviour of multiples, and they did a lot of mental computation.
In her reflection, Irene Segurado indicates that the students surpassed
all her expectations. She says: “I had not foreseen the hypothesis of compar-
ing the multiples of the different numbers, because I had never put them side
by side. Therefore, I experienced their discoveries with great enthusiasm” (p.
71). She also reflects on the implications of working as a whole class, as com-
pared to small groups: “The contribution of a student was ‘picked’ by all his
colleagues, yielding a greater number of discoveries” (p. 72). It would seem
that in curriculum topics such as multiplication facts, multiples, and divisors,
at the elementary school level, one can just do routine exercises. This example
shows that, on the contrary, these topics allow for much exploratory and in-
vestigative work.

Example 2. How is the typical student in my class?

A second example comes from a class of Olívia Sousa, a grade 6 teacher
working with students aged 11 (see Sousa, 2002). The task was organized as
a statistical investigation: “Imagine you want to communicate to another stu-
dent in a distant country, or, who knows, to an ET, how students in your class
are?…” This was meant to have students taking all kinds of measurements
about their bodies and collecting data about their families, which usually
raises high levels of students’ enthusiasm.
Six 90-minute blocks were used to carry out this task, with stu-
dents working in small groups. The teacher divided the whole task in four
main steps: (i) preparation of the investigation questions; (ii) data collec-
tion; (iii) data analysis; and (iv) reporting the results. In each step some
written instructions were provided to the students. For example, the direc-
tions for step 2, were:

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With your colleagues:

s7RITEASAQUESTIONEACHONEOFTHECHARACTERISTICSTHATYOUARE
going to investigate.
s7HATANSWERSDOYOUEXPECTTOOBTAINFORYOURQUESTIONS
s(OWTHROUGHOBSERVINGMEASURINGORAQUESTIONNAIRE CANYOU
get the answers to your questions?
s0REPAREDATASHEETSTOCOLLECTTHEDATA

The statistics measures (mean, median, mode) had not been taught to this class
yet. A major decision in this experiment was to have the students working with
their previous knowledge of these notions, instead of teaching them formally
and after propose application exercises to practice. Therefore, the students were
asked to find the mode (that is, “the most frequent value”), the median (the
“middle” value), and the mean (assuming that they knew about it). In fact,
they had no trouble in finding the most frequent value. To find the median took
more time, but when they realized that they could order the values, it became
easier. There were a few problems as some students forgot to count repeated
values or took the median as the average of the extremes but the class discus-
sion was a good setting to sort these things out. And, finally, the students had
already a strong intuitive notion of mean as something halfway between two
values:

Inês: Then we put 1 and 35.

Alexandre: 1 and 40.
Prof. How did you get 1 and 35? (...)
Inês and Estelle: It was an estimation!
Inês: It is not as Mauro (1,20 m) nor as myself (1,50 m),. It is in the middle.
Estelle: It is between.
Inês: It is between the two.
Estelle: Mauro and Inês.

To find the mean of more than two numbers, with the help of the teacher, they
were able to generalize the intuitive notion of adding two numbers and divid-
ing by two.
In her reflection, Olívia Sousa considered that carrying out this task was
a significant learning experience, in which the students worked mathematics

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notions of two domains, statistics and numbers and computation, in an inte-

grated way. Decimal fractions obtained from measuring quantities associated to
the body, were no longer abstract entities but something with meaning. Working
with these numbers – comparing, sorting, and operating – in a significant con-
text contributed towards students’ better understanding of them. She considered
that, regarding statistics topics, the contact with different kinds of variables and
different ways of collecting, organizing, and representing meaningful informa-
tion, promoted students’ understanding of the statistics language, concepts and
methods that went much beyond simple memorization. This example shows that
an investigation based on the students’ reality can be the starting point to develop
investigation competences, to learn new mathematics concepts (in this case, sta-
tistics notions), and to practice and consolidate previous mathematics knowledge.

Example 3. How to amplify?

The next example concerns an experience carried out by João Almiro (2005),
a grade 8 teacher:

The Visual Education teacher wants to amplify the picture below but she put the fol-
lowing condition: the area of the amplified picture must be 400 times larger than
this. The teacher is going to do a overhead transparency with the picture and project
it in the wall. But she has a big problem: At what distance she must put the overhead
projector from the wall? How can we help her? Write a report that includes the de-
scription of your investigations, the computations that you made, your conjectures
and possible solutions.

(M. C. Escher, 1965)

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The students had to design their own strategies. João Almiro prepared the room with
four overhead projectors (each one to be used by two groups of students) and gave a
metric strip and a ruler to each group.The room was a little small for the projectors but,
anyway, it was possible to work. The teacher did not provide any further instructions.
The reactions from the groups were very different. Some were lost, not
knowing what to do. As one student wrote in a final questionnaire: “I felt some
difficulties with the overhead projectors since in the beginning we did not know
where to start”. Others, immediately started trying to find ways of doing the task.
The teacher was pleased to notice that all the groups understood that the projected
rectangle would need to have length and width 20 times larger than the initial
picture, so that the area was 400 times larger. The students had solved problems
involving enlargements before and were able to mobilize this previous knowledge.
The big difficulty of the students was finding the distance that they
should put the overhead projector from the wall so that the length and the width
amplify 20 times. All the groups constructed a rectangle with the dimensions
of the picture. They projected, measured what they found, and then figured out
how many times the length and width were now larger. They quickly understood
that they did not have space in the room to enlarge the projected dimensions 20
times and, therefore, they had to use some strategy to know what distance the
overhead projector had to be from the wall.
In one of the groups, the students understood that there was a direct
proportion between the distance of the overhead projector to the wall and the
number of times that the dimensions were amplified and quickly solved the
problem. Four other groups, however, had much more difficulty. Helping each
other, they went on measuring and arguing and when a group arrived to a con-
clusion, they shared it with the others. Sometimes they made conjectures that
the other groups refuted and showed that were not correct. Finally, they arrived
to solutions that the teacher considered acceptable. This is the final part of the so-
lution of one of the groups that used the notion of unit rate and cross products:

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Measuring the picture, they found that it was a rectangle with 11,2cm by
7,9cm. Enlarging the length 20 times yields 224cm. As they found that with the
projector 1m from the wall transformed this length in a 44,5cm segment, they
found the required distance using the cross product. For three other groups
this was a very difficult task, and they were not able to do it, even with the help
from the teacher.
Some students (about 1/5) reported a negative view of this work.
One of them wrote: “I didn’t like these classes (…) I think that I learn more
in classes doing exercises and asking questions”. However, other students were
happy and recognized that they had significant learning. As one of them said:

The problems are a bit more complicated that those from other classes, at
least the overhead one, in which we had to think a lot, develop, we had to
think different methods, to achieve the ideal method to get the correct result.
We had to begin by finding out what was to do. In textbooks, the questions
are direct, they tell us immediately what we have to do.

These responses from students show that not all of them get very excited when
the teacher presents challenging tasks. It is not because of “motivation” that these
tasks have an important role in mathematics teaching. It is because they may pro-
mote significant learning. This problem required the students to draw on their
previous knowledge of similarity, area, and direct proportion. They also had to
design a strategy to collect data to figure out the relationship of the distance of
the overhead projector to the wall and the size of the image.

Example 4. Numerical equations.

This example is drawn from an algebra teaching experiment carried out by
Ana Matos (2007) in her grade 8 class. This teaching unit included the study
of numerical sequences, functions, and 1st degree equations. The class had a
high number of students that were recent immigrants from countries such as
Angola, Brazil, Cap Verde, Guinea, S. Tomé and Prince, and Romania. The unit
was carried out in 12,5 classes (90 minutes each). It provided several kinds
of learning experiences. The first part of the unit included exploratory and in-
vestigative tasks as a mean to foster the construction of new concepts. In the
tasks about numerical sequences, the students had to explore numerical pat-
terns with different levels of difficulty (some of which presented pictorially).

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These tasks created opportunities for identifying generalizations, which could

be expressed in natural language at first but should progressively be expressed
using algebraic language. In this part of the unit, letters were mainly used as
generalized numbers and as unknowns in simple 1st degree equations. This is
the overall plan of the unit:

Classes /Tasks Topics Objectives Aspects to develop

- To discover
relationships among - Searching patterns
3,5 numbers; and establishing
Number sequences.
- To continue sequences generalizations;
(Tasks 1, 2, 3) of numbers: divisors; - Representing
multiples; squares; cubes numerical
and powers of a number. relationships in
Functions natural language,
- Read, interpret and by other means and
- Tables;
construct tables and symbols;
- Graphics;
graphics for functions - To construct tables
- Functions defined
such as of values, graphics
3 by an algebraic
. and verbal rules that
expression.
Tasks 4, 5, 6 Direct proportion as represent functional
or other relationships;
and textbook a function
simple ones; - To understand the
exercises and .
- Relate in intuitive use of functions
problems - Graphics of the
way the slope of a as mathematical
functions
line with the rate in models of real world
and
a function such as situations;
. - To particularize
.
relationships among
- Interpret the
variables and
statement of a problem;
formulae and solving
- Translate a problem
simple equations;
by an equation;
1st degree equations - To solve problems
6 - To search solutions of
- Equations with represented by
an equation;
denominators and equations and to
Tasks 7, 8 - To solve 1st degree
parenthesis; carry out simple
and textbook equations with an
- Literal equations algebraic procedures;
exercises and unknown;
- To translate
problems - To solve literal
information from
equations, notably
a representation to
formulas used in other
another.
disciplines, for one of
the unknowns.

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In the second part of the unit, the study of functions was introduced by two
tasks involving relationships between variables. Although the letter is used both
as a generalized number and as an unknown, here the focus was on its use as a
variable and on the notion of joint variation. In the third part, tasks 7 and 8 con-
tinued the study of equations that the students begun at grade 7 and revisited
in previous topics, solving new kinds of problems and equations with denomi-
nators. In this phase, letters were mostly used as unknowns and as generalized
numbers. All tasks allowed the students to use different strategies exploring
them on their own way. This approach stimulates students’ active participation,
providing them multiple entry points, adequate to their ability levels.
Working with sequences and functions became an opportunity to use
the algebraic language as a tool for generalizing and sharing meanings. The
study of these topics required solving simple equations, which was important
to create a common understanding among students, allowing them to continue
learning more complex algebraic ideas. For example, in the first general discus-
sion, the sequence with general term 3n + 5 was considered and the following
dialogue took place:

Teacher: So, which was the order in which 300 was placed?
Erica: Teacher, 3 x 100…
Teacher: OK, but does that give 300?
Erica: No, that is just with 3n.
Teacher: Oh, but I can’t change the rule like that because we would be working with another sequence, differ-
ent from this one.We just need to know which is the n that makes this expression yield 300.
Sofia: 300 – 5? I don’t know. [Students talk with each other.]
Erica: So, we make 3n = 300 – 5.

Some students did not follow Erica’s suggestion, and went on think-
ing on their own strategies. For example, Pedro claimed with enthusiasm:
“3 x 98 + 5 = 299; 3 x 99 + 5 = 302. It will not pass on 300!” This discussion
continued with the contributions of Isabel, who solved the equation at the
board, using her previous knowledge. The discussion provided a contrast be-
tween Erica’s idea, the formal approach of Isabel and the intuitive process used
by Pedro to see if 300 was a term of the sequence and supported a discussion
abut the advantages of each process.
This example shows how students may be encouraged to design their
own strategies and how these may be discussed and contrasted in the classroom.

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Such discussion helps them to realize more connections and relationships and to
become more resourceful to deal with new problems in the future.
An important feature of this teaching unit is the interconnection of
sequences, functions and equations. The work with sequences leads itself to
formulating generalizations and using the algebraic language to express them.
In turn, this language may be used in functions and equations. And equations
may be used again to solve problems concerning functions and sequences.

3. DIRECT TEACHING AND EXPLORATORY LEARNING

The examples of the previous section illustrate some key ideas about mathemat-
ics teaching and learning that I now address in more general terms.

Tasks
At the core of the former situations there were investigations, explorations
and problems. It is important to note how these tasks differ from usual exer-
cises. If a student knows about equivalent fractions and use of parenthesis, an
exercise may be the demand to simplify a fraction such as or an expression
such as . That is, in an exercise, applying a computational procedure
or doing a straightforward reasoning provides the answer. Furthermore, the
question is clear as well as the given conditions. On the other hand, a problem
may be a task such as: “What is the smallest integer number that, divided
by 5, 6 and 7 all yield 3 as remainder?” A problem clearly also states what is
given and what is asked, but there is no straightforward way to find the solu-
tion. And this is an example of what we may call an investigation:

1. Write the table for 9s, from 1 to 12. Observe the digits in the different columns.
Do you notice any pattern?
2. See if you find patterns in the tables of other numbers.

Here the question is somehow open as the reader does not know what kind of
“pattern” can be found. Whereas a problem states a well formulated question, in an
investigation, deciding exactly what our question is, is the first thing we need to do.
We can differentiate tasks according to two main dimensions: (i)
structure, ranging from closed to open, and (ii) complexity, ranging from ac-
cessible to complex as in the figure:

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Accessible

Exercise Exploration

Closed Open

Problem Investigation

Complex

Explorations and investigations are both open tasks but with different complexity.
Explorations are most suitable to assist the development of new concepts and rep-
resentations. Investigations provide the opportunity to students to go through a real
mathematical experience of formulating questions, posing and testing conjectures,
and arguing and proving statements. Problems are necessary to challenge students
with non-trivial mathematics questions. And exercises are important to consolidate
students’ knowledge of basic facts and procedures. In consequence, the teacher can-
not do his/her job properly using just one kind of task – the issue is to select an ap-
propriate mix, taking into account the students’ needs and interests (Ponte, 2005).
Of course, tasks differ in other dimensions, such as the time needed to
do them. For example, investigations that take a long time to complete are usu-
ally called “projects”. Another dimension of tasks is pure/applied. In our exam-
ples, some tasks were framed in “real-life” contexts (Sousa; Almiro) and others in
“pure mathematics” contexts (Segurado; Matos).

Classroom roles
Usually, a class in which students work on explorations or investigations has three
main segments (Christiansen & Walther, 1986): (i) introduction; (ii) development
of the work, and (ii) final discussion and reflection about what was done, its
meaning, and new questions to study. In the introduction, the task is negotiated
between teacher and students; during the development of the work the students
work by themselves; and the final discussion is a key moment of sharing ideas and
institutionalising new mathematical knowledge. The roles of teacher and students
change during these three segments. However, at each segment, rather than a one
way flow of information, centred on the authority of the teacher, we may have a
classroom marked by multiple and complex interactions.

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In the former examples, tasks were proposed to the students who had
to discover strategies to solve them. They also had the responsibility of using
logical arguments to convince the others of the correctness of their solutions.
Therefore, the student had a voice, not only to ask clarification questions, but
also to defend his/her claims as an intellectual authority. This is a quite differ-
ent setting from the case in which students receive “explanations” from the
teacher, who shows “examples” and indicates “how to do things”, where the
teachers and the textbook remain as the sole authorities in the classroom.
Controlling the class when the students are more agitated, as in the
case of Irene Segurado, or leaving them to work with large autonomy, as João
Almiro did, that is a decision that the teacher needs to take according to the
particular situation. However, in all cases presented, the students are assigned a
significant role in their mathematical work as a classroom community.

Classroom communication
In a standard mathematics classroom the teacher dominates the discourse, ei-
ther providing explanations and examples or posing questions and providing
immediate feedback. The operating IRF sequence is well known – the teacher
initiates with a question, a student responds and the teacher feedback closes down the
issue, confirming or rejecting this response. We must note, however, that not
all the questions fall in this pattern. In fact, there are many kinds of questions
(e.g., focus, confirmatory and inquiry questions) and appropriate questioning
is one of the main resources that teachers have to lead classroom discourse
(Pólya, 1945).
In our examples, the students are encouraged to share ideas with their
colleagues, often working in groups or in pairs. At the end of significant work,
there are discussions with all the class. These are very important moments in
which there is negotiation of meanings (Bishop & Goffree, 1986). Different
representations may be contrasted and the conventional representations may be
analysed in detail. The proper use of mathematical language is fixed. This is also
the moment when the main ideas related to the task are stressed, formalized,
and institutionalized as accepted knowledge in the classroom community.
During group work, communication among students may vary a lot.
Sometimes, there is a real exchange of ideas and arguments. In other cases, only
one or two students conduct all the work and the others remain silent. The way
the teacher interacts with the students of a group is also of great importance.

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If the teacher does not respond to the students’ questions, these may lose their
motivation in the task. If the teacher provides all the answers, the possible benefit
of the task for the students may be lost. This means that the teacher has to deal
permanently with many dilemmas in conducting the classroom communication.

Teaching units
Just by itself, a very powerful task does not much. If the students are to experience
some significant mathematics learning, they have to work on a field of problems
for some extended period of time (at least for a couple of classes), where they have
the opportunity to grasp the non-trivial aspects of the new knowledge, connect it
to previous knowledge, and develop new representations and working strategies.
Teachers have to work through teaching units that, on the one hand,
provide a journey that supports students’ learning trajectory (Simon, 1999) on
a given theme and, on the other hand, support the development of students’
transversal aims for mathematics learning, including their representing, reason-
ing, connecting, problem solving, and communicating capacities. As Witmann
(1984) indicates, designing these teaching units, according to careful criteria,
is a major task for mathematics education researchers and classroom teachers.

Summing up
This analysis of different kinds of tasks, roles and communication patterns pro-
vides a characterization of two main styles of mathematics teaching that, in
different grade levels, we find today in classrooms all over the world. We may
call them direct teaching and exploratory learning:

Direct teaching Exploratory learning

Tasks Tasks
- tandard task: Exercise, - Variety: Explorations, Investigations,
- The situations are artificial, Problems, Projects, Exercises,
- For each problem there is a strategy - The situations are realistic,
and a correct answer. - Often, there are several strategies to
deal with a problem.
Roles
- Students receive “explanations”, Roles
- The teachers and the textbook are the - Students receive tasks to discover
single authorities in the classroom, strategies to solve them,
- The teacher shows “examples” so that - The teacher asks the student to explain
they learn “how to do things”. and justify his/her reasoning,
- The student is also an authority.

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Direct teaching Exploratory learning

Communication Communication
- The teacher poses questions and - Students are encouraged to discuss
provides immediate feedback (sequence with colleagues (working in groups or
I-R-F). pairs),
- The student poses “clarification” - At the end of a significant work, there
questions. are discussions with all class,
- Meanings are negotiated.

CHALLENGES TO TEACHERS

One must note that a class with exploration and investigation tasks is much
more complex to manage than a class based in the exposition of contents and
doing exercises, given the impossibility of predicting the proposals and ques-
tions that students may pose. In addition, the students do not know how to
work on this kind of task and need that the teacher helps them doing such
learning. Notwithstanding its difficulties and limitations, this work is essential
in a mathematics class that aims educational objectives that go beyond those
that are achieved by doing structured activities.
We need to ask what is necessary for a teacher to carry out such ex-
ploratory and investigative work in his/her classroom. An analysis of this activ-
ity and its contextual requirements leads us to two main areas. The first area
concerns the personal relation with mathematical investigations and the second
the use of investigations in professional practice.

Personal relation with mathematical investigations

1. To have a good notion about what a mathematical exploration/investigation is,
how it is carried out, how results are validated (What is it/How to do it?)
2. To feel a minimum level of confidence and spontaneity in carrying out a mathematical
exploration/investigation;
3. To have a general view of mathematics that is not restricted to definitions, procedures and
rules, but that values this activity.

Use of investigations in professional practice

1. To know how to select and adapt exploratory and investigative tasks adjusted to the
needs of his/her classes;
2. To know how to direct students carrying out investigative work, in the phases of
introduction, development of the work and final discussion;

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3. To have confidence in his/her capacity to manage the classroom atmosphere and the
relations with students to carry out this work;
4. To develop a perspective about his/her role in curriculum management, so that math-
ematical exploration/investigations, in combination with other tasks, have an ad-
equate role according to the needs of the students.

These are not competencies that teachers develop from one day to another. The
teachers involved in the projects that I mentioned developed professionally for
an extended period of time. As important as their projects, was the work in
communicating their experiences, writing papers and presenting conferences
at professional meetings. This enabled a deeper look at the experiences that
become an important resource for mathematics education, showing the path
that curriculum development and change of professional practice may take. The
development of this competence stands on three main elements: collaborating,
researching on our own practice, and getting involved with the professional
community, beginning at the school level.

Collaborating
Joining together the efforts of several people is a powerful strategy to cope
with the problems of professional practice. Several people working together
have more ideas, more energy and more strength to overcome obstacles than
an individual working alone, and they may build on the diversity of competen-
cies. To do that, of course, they need to adjust to each other, creating an efficient
system of collective work. When one of the members of the group is going
through a difficult time, he/she receives the support from the others. When a
member is really inspired, he/she energizes all group.

Researching professional practice

Teachers’ culture has been essentially that of “knowledge transmission”, bridg-
ing the gap between scholarly knowledge and students. Today, this appears as a
very limited view of the professional identity. Teachers, although experts in their
subject matter field, are professionals that face complex problems and need to
research them. This means that they need to be able to identify problems, gather
information, consider different sides of the issues, test solutions, analyse data and
interpret results. They have to present their studies to the other members of the
profession. This does not depend so much in learning “research methods” but,

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mostly, in keeping an inquiry stance (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1999), in knowing

about defining issues and problems, and learning about theoretical notions that
help in interpreting data. Investigating is a new element of the teachers’ profes-
sional culture that requires an integrative view of theory and practice as two
sides of a single coin since, establishing a dialogue between both is a major step
towards understanding and solving problems.

Involvement with the professional community

Valuing a culture of research among teachers does not depend only on an ob-
stinate individual agency. On the contrary, it requires a fundamental role of the
collective stances where teachers carry out their professional activity, especially
the schools, pedagogical movements and associative groups. In Portugal, there is
an important tradition of innovative projects carried out by collaborative groups
and sharing experiences in associative settings. What is still missing is reflective
and transformative activity at the school level. Teachers who want to bring about
change need to carry out their own projects within the schools, showing the re-
sults to other teachers, stimulating reflection, creating the need to know more, to
experiment, and, hopefully to get other teachers involved in common initiatives.

CONCLUSION

Mathematical explorations and investigations can be a significant part of the

mathematics curriculum. This is because of a number of reasons:

s4HEYCONSTITUTEANESSENTIALPARTOFTHEMATHEMATICIANSWORK
s4HEYFAVOURTHEINVOLVEMENTOFTHESTUDENTINWORKCARRIEDOUTIN
the mathematics class, indispensable for a significant learning,
s4HEYPROVIDEMULTIPLEENTRYPOINTSFORSTUDENTSATDIFFERENTLEVELSOF
mathematical competence,
s4HEYSTIMULATEHOLISTICTHINKING
s4HEYCANBEINTEGRATEDNATURALLYINEVERYPARTOFTHECURRICULUM
s4HEYPROMOTECOMPLEXTHINKINGBUTREINFORCELEARNINGELEMENTARY
concepts.

With greater or lesser emphasis, either mathematical investigations or key ele-

ments of investigating such as conjecturing, testing, and proving are recom-

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mended in the official curricula in many countries around the world (Ponte,
Brocardo, & Oliveira, 2003). Investigating, teaching, and learning can be seen
as an interconnected. The researcher who teaches benefits from the contact
with students, as he or she listens to their questions. The teacher who investi-
gates can use current examples and open problems, making teaching a stimu-
lating activity. And through investigations, the student may become involved in
genuine knowledge construction.
Mathematics teachers and teacher educators have interest to investigate
their own professional practice, seeking to understand students’ and student
teachers’ difficulties, the factors from the social and school contexts that influ-
ence them, and the power of teaching strategies to promote qualitative changes
in students’ learning. As students may explore and investigate mathematics,
teachers and teacher educators may investigate students’ mathematics learning
and the conditions that enable it (Ponte, 2001).
In mathematics education there are at present two separate worlds.
One is the world of research, as an intellectual elaboration with high rigour
but with problematic practical relevance. The other is the world of practice,
where problems are felt in a cogent way, but where there is often little capac-
ity to theorize and to introduce and sustain innovative solutions. We now have
an emerging reality, the world of researching practice. One may expect that
it will deal with questions with strong practical relevance, with proper rigor
and intellectual elaboration. Working towards such an agenda is a joint task of
teachers and teacher educators.

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