Prospective mathematics teachers’ professional development through meta discussion on a pedagogical model

This paper presents some results emerging during a larger study, still in progress, about prospective teachers’ training and concerning their introduction to the particular pedagogical model of Mathematical Discussion. According to our hypothesis, prospective teachers can be introduced to a new pedagogical model through the combination of a living experience with the role of students and a critical reflection on their own experience. Consistently, we designed a teaching experiment involving a class of prospective primary school teachers with the aim of exploring and deepening such hypotheses. The first results focus on a new theoretical construct that we named Meta Discussion on a Pedagogical model, and on its effectiveness in leading prospective teachers make acquaintance, in and from practice, with both theoretical knowledge and practical experience of the pedagogical mode of Mathematical Discussion.