Teachers as key players: from professional development to the design and use of digital resources and backward

This paper presents an ongoing research project aiming at identifying innovative methodologies and technologies to design and use digital resources supporting mathematics education. The key players in the projects are the teachers. They are involved in the collaborative design of a digital mathematical serious game with researchers and software developers. Their engagement, shaped up to be a professional development experience, will result in a crucial aspect to put into practice the exchange between the scientific and the productive world. Methodologies and technologies developed with their contribution will constitute the basis on which further professional development programs could arise. Herein we present and qualitatively discuss the early results of an initial survey aiming at investigating teachers’ perceptions of their professional needs with respect to the use of digital resources in mathematics education and their role and contribution to collaboratively designing a digital mathematical serious game. The theoretical lenses that frame this investigation are the Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge and the Meta-Didactical Transposition. The study shows how teachers recognize the role of technology in mathematics education and are willing to experiment with new digital resources to keep up with the times. The interplay between school, academia, and company is also brought to the fore as an effective strategy to cope with the educational challenges of the 21st century.