Conducting Mathematical Thinking Activities with Secondary Teachers

Focusing on the environment of learning of a PD course and on teacher¿s classroom work, the aim of this study was to find links between what teachers learned about Mathematical Thinking Activities (Wiskundige Denkactiviteiten ¿ WDA) with their work in classroom. Therefore, the study attempted to identify similarities, changes or empowerment on teacher¿s pedagogical content knowledge (knowledge about how to teach a subject) and teacher¿s professional competence (person¿s ability to transfer knowledge into action) (Maass, K.; Doorman, M.; pg. 890; 2013). In order to carry on the research, the study was developed in Netherlands under the two research questions: ¿ In terms of changes in teachers' practices when working with a WDA activity, how are the empowerments of teaching approaches? Which changes emerge on these approaches? ¿ To what extent does a WDA course contribute to the empowerment of teachers¿ competence in working with inquiry learning? On this study, WDA specification is related with an Inquiry ¿ Based way of teaching and learning. Thus, it was expected that teachers could recognize and/or develop WDA tasks with characteristics of Inquiry Based Learning (IBL) Theory.