Amadeus - Analysis of didactical acts in mathematics lessons

The heart of the project was 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 prepared high quality teaching sequences in their university seminars which they tested on groups of students from cooperating schools (AHS) at a maths lab which was instituted as part of this project. The filmed video sequences represented the data which were used for the planned analysis of the applied teaching strategies.

Within the project the students were involved in the research in many ways – first of all, using a three-perspective model, surveys carried out among the participating university students and pupils (structured interviews) the answers to which were categorized by the project team. Based on these categories, relevant scenes from the footage was chosen and turned into short video clips. Using the so-called SHOWeD method (participatory research) the perspective of the students concerning these interesting scenes were determined. The aims of the analysis were 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 was 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 played an essential role in the investigation process.

Goals of the project were 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.