Cusi, A., Malara, N.A. (2015). The intertwining between theory and practice: influences on ways of teaching and teachers’ education.
Cusi, A., Malara, N.A. (2015). The intertwining between theory and practice: influences on ways of teaching and teachers’education, in English, L. & Kirshner, D. (Eds.), Handbook of International Research in Mathematics Education, Third Edition (pp. 504-522) London: Taylor & Francis group.
Download pdf
In this chapter we consider the dialectical relationship between theory and practice, taking into account the model of teacher as a decision maker and highlighting the strong implications of this model on the research on teachers’ practice and teacher education. We focus, in particular, on the role that researchers could play in fostering a significant teacher change, and present our way to promote it which merge experimentations of innovative didactical paths in the class with educational processes for teachers. We offer an example from our studies which highlights how a theoretical tool we have conceived for the analysis of teachers’ actions during classroom activities could become an effective tool to foster communication and interaction between teachers and researchers, reducing the separation gap between research and practice, making it evolve in a dialectic process between these two poles.
