Tareas

Please cite the source as:
Martínez Silva, M. y Gorgorió, N. (2004). Conceptions on the teaching of
subtraction: a study focused on an in-service teacher-training course. Revista
Electrónica de Investigación Educativa, 6 (1). Retrieved month day, year from:
http://redie.uabc.mx/vol6no1/contents-silva.html

Revista Electrónica de Investigación Educativa
Vol. 6, No. 1, 2004

Conceptions onthe teaching of subtraction: A
study focused on an in-service
teacher training course
Mario Martínez Silva (1)
mario.martinez@campus.uab.es
Núria Gorgorió i Solá (2)
nuria.gorgorio@uab.es

(1) Subsecretaría de Desarrollo Magisterial
Secretaría de Educación del
Estado de Nuevo León
Carlos de Velasco 303
Col. Burócratas del Estado, 64380
Monterrey, Nuevo León, México
(2) Departamentode Didáctica de la
Matemática y las Ciencias Experimentales
Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona
G-5, 142, C. P. 08193
Bellaterra, Barcelona, España
(Received: January 10, 2004; accepted for publication: March 5, 2004)

Abstract

Martínez Silva & Gorgorió: Conceptions on the teaching of…

This paper reports a research about a group of in-service teachers working in primary
public schoolsin a poor urban zone in Monterrey city, Mexico. Its main aim was to study
teachers’ conceptions about the teaching of subtraction and, in particular, to know more
about the role that they assign to context and contextualizing in the teaching process.
Broadly speaking, the research arose from the interest to know more about the relationship
between the training and education in mathematics ofprimary teachers and how the
teaching and learning of mathematics actually takes place at school.
Key words: Teaching-learning, mathematics, elementary education, teachers’ training.

Introduction
After more than a decade of the mathematics programs reform for elementary
education in Mexico, there are few research studies which report on the changes
or transformation in teachers’conceptions on the teaching and the learning of
mathematics.
Even though the reform proposed a significant change in the focus on the teaching
of mathematics in elementary education, which even led to the design of new free
text books, we know, as shown by Llinares (1992), that the changes in the teaching
of mathematics are not originated only by a normative curriculum, because
teachers filter thiscurriculum through their mental framework, which includes
mathematical knowledge, concepts and beliefs concerning mathematics as a
discipline and its teaching process, as well as other aspects related to its role
within the classroom. In this same sense, according to Ernest (2000), the empirical
studies have confirmed that teachers’ ideas, beliefs and preferences concerning
mathematicsinfluence the way they teach.
On the other hand, context plays an important role in the construction of
mathematical concepts and procedures by the apprentice. Their importance lies,
according to different researchers, such as Brousseau (1994), Charnay (1994),
Carraher, Carraher & Schliemann (1995), Nunes & Bryant (1996), in giving those
concepts and procedures meaning and, sense. For Brousseau(1994), for
example, the teacher should first carry out the work in the reverse sense to the
order followed by scientists, a re-contextualization and re-personification of
knowledge: to search for situations which give meaning to the knowledge that is to
be taught. According to those authors, many of the difficulties in teaching
mathematics are caused because of the use of irrelevant contexts withlittle
significance for the student.
We have chosen a basic subject from the mathematics curriculum for elementary
education, the subject of subtraction, as a means to begin to the identify teachers’
concepts on the teaching of mathematics. Teaching subtraction seems to us to be
a mathematics subject of great interest for the purpose of our investigation,
because it constitutes a subject...