Mathematics Education Seminar Online

Lecturer's perspectives on students' participation in university mathematics teaching

Thomais Karavi, Groningen University

The most common teaching method in advanced mathematics courses is lectures. In this context, the lecturer is in front of a large cohort of students, presenting the mathematical content to them, who listen in a mostly one-sided communication format. Recently, an increase in empirical studies about lecturing in proof-oriented, university mathematics courses appeared, with descriptive studies being the most common among them. However, the participatory aspects of lecturing still need to be explored.

In this seminar, I will discuss the third part of my PhD project which is a single case study with an experienced lecturer, teaching an introductory, proof-oriented, analysis course. We studied the rules in lecturing that encourage students’ participation in the mathematical course using the commognitive framework. Through a multi-layered analysis, a number of metarules concerning students’ participation in the mathematical discourse from the lecturer’s perspective emerged. We focused on three aspects of the meta-level discourse: the development of proof, the advanced mathematical norms, and the expectations of the lecturer for students’ self-study. Examples of the identified metarules relate to the use of the definitions for the beginning of the proving process, the proof production, and the self-conviction. The study offers a micro-level investigation of lecturing and adds to the empirical studies about the participatory aspects of proof lecturing.

The seminar can be attended online in Microsoft Teams

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