The research, led by the University of Oviedo, was based on proposals in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. Almost a quarter of respondents with a solid background in mathematics think they need to strengthen their knowledge and teaching skills in this subject
A study supports the need to encourage future primary and secondary education maths teachers to be literate in statistics, data and probability, based on contextualised situations. These situations relate statistics and probability to actual or realistic contexts, and enable work to be done on the connection between mathematical knowledge and the context - so that the need and usefulness of statistics and probability are viewed as mathematical tools for interpreting the world around us and responding to situations of uncertainty. The research, led by the University of Oviedo, was based on educational proposals related to the pandemic. Researchers have studied in detail the perspective of students and graduates of the University Master's Degree in Teacher Training for Compulsory Secondary Education, Baccalaureate and Vocational Training in regard to acquiring different professional skills. This was part of a framework designed and validated on the basis of knowledge models for maths teachers in previous studies.
The research is based on the important role of data, statistics and probability in helping the public understand and tackle the problems around us, and in particular global crisis situations such as that caused by Covid-19. This situation has highlighted the importance and need for mathematics in general - and statistics and probability in particular - in order to study the world around us - for example, through models for estimating the probability of contagion, analysing virus transmission data, interpreting graphs ("stopping the curve") and tackling situations of uncertainty (whether or not contagion is a non-deterministic event).
The paper has resulted in the publication of three scientific articles. It was written by Laura Muñiz-Rodríguez, Álvaro Aguilar-González and Luis J. Rodríguez-Muñiz - members of the Mathematics Education Research Group (MERG) of the Department of Statistics and Operational Research and Teaching of Mathematics of the Asturian academic institution, in collaboration with Ángel Alsina of Girona University, and Claudia Vásquez of the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile.
In addition, teaching staff of the University of Oviedo have published the results of a related research project, which enables two dimensions to be distinguished when training future secondary school mathematics teachers: one is related to mathematical content and teaching methods, the other is related to more general educational and pedagogical skills. These, in turn, enable us to identify three groups of individuals with similar perceptions. Those in the first group very positively evaluate their training, although they consider training in mathematics and the teaching of mathematics to be better than pedagogical training. Those in the second group have an average perception in regard to competences, and are a little lower in terms of ability to explain the impact of their teaching strategies, the efficient use of the classroom for different strategies, and participation in the centre's educational project. Lastly, those in the third group perceive a low achievement of competences - especially in relation to understanding mathematics. These results support the idea of strengthening teacher training by paying attention to the two dimensions described (the teaching of mathematics and general pedagogy) conceived as a whole but without neglecting either of them - since almost a quarter of the respondents, with a solid background in maths, think they need to build their skills both in the subject itself and in how to teach it.
The research mentioned above is financed by Department of Science and Innovation (TIN2017-87600P) and Principality of Asturias (FC-GRUPIN-IDI/2018/000199) projects.
Article details
Muñiz-Rodríguez, L., Aguilar-González, Á. and Rodríguez-Muñiz, L. J. (2020). Profiles of future mathematics teachers based on their professional competences. Enseñanza de las Ciencias (Teaching Science), 38(2), 141-161.
https://doi.org/10.5565/rev/ensciencias.3161
Alsina, Á., Vásquez, C., Muñiz-Rodríguez, L., and Rodríguez-Muñiz, L.J. (2020). How to encourage statistical and probabilistic literacy in context? Strategies and resources for primary education based on Covid-19. Épsilon - Revista de Educación Matemática (Mathematics Education Magazine), 104, 99-128.
https://thales.cica.es/epsilon/sites/thales.cica.es.epsilon/files/epsilon104_7.pdf
Rodríguez-Muñiz, L.J., Muñiz-Rodríguez, L., Vásquez, C., and Alsina, Á. (2020). How to encourage statistical and data literacy in context? Strategies and resources for secondary education based on Covid-19. Numbers. Revista de Didáctica de las Matemáticas (Teaching Mathematics Journal), 104, 217-238.
http://www.sinewton.org/numeros/numeros/104/Propuestasaula_01.pdf
Vásquez, C., Rodríguez-Muñiz, L.J., Muñiz-Rodríguez, L., and Alsina, Á. (2020). How to encourage probabilistic literacy in context? Strategies and resources for secondary education based on Covid-19. Numbers. Revista de Didáctica de las Matemáticas (Teaching Mathematics Journal), 104, 239-260.
http://www.sinewton.org/numeros/numeros/104/Propuestasaula_02.pdf
