PROCEEDINGS OF THE 19TH ANNUAL CONFERENCE ON RESEARCH IN UNDERGRADUATE MATHEMATICS EDUCATION
2016
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Investigating a mathematics graduate student’s construction of a hypothetical learning trajectory
Page: 696
This study reports results of how a teacher’s mathematical meanings and instructional planning decisions transformed while participating in and then generating a hypothetical learning trajectory on angles, angle measure and the radius as a unit of measurement. Using a teaching experiment methodology, an initial clinical interview was designed to reveal the teacher’s meanings for angles and angle measure and to gain information about the teacher’s instructional planning decisions. The teacher participated in a researcher generated HLT designed to promote the construction of productive meanings for angles and angle measure and then constructed her own HLT for her students. The initial interview revealed that the teacher had several unproductive meanings for angles and angle measure that caused the teacher perturbations while participating in the tasks of the researcher generated HLT. This participation allowed her to construct different meanings for angles and angle measure which changed her instructional planning decisions.