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Evolution of teachers’ professional learning when using a technological resource: a case study of a Tunisian primary school teacher

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Abstract

While numerous studies have investigated teachers’ professional learning through their interaction with resources, the question of how teachers’ knowledge evolves at different stages of the instructional process remains underexplored. To address this gap, this article builds on the documentational approach to didactics (DAD) and the theory of instrumental orchestration to investigate teachers’ professional learning in terms of document development through their interaction with resources in and out of class. To this end, the paper proposes a theoretical and methodological model to analyze the evolution of a document, focusing on the joint evolution of utilization schemes and professional situations. This model provides analytical tools to track the development of teachers’ professional knowledge. The theoretical and methodological model was applied to a case study involving a Tunisian primary school teacher who used the technological resource GeoGebra for the first time to introduce the properties of parallelograms to 6th grade students (aged 11–12). Findings suggest the relevance and operationality of the proposed model, through a short-term analysis of documentational genesis, to track the evolution of the teacher’s professional knowledge related to the use of GeoGebra in class. This model can be considered as a theoretical and methodological contribution, deepening the understanding of teachers’ professional learning when using technological resources and providing insights into the dynamic nature of teachers’ professional knowledge development.

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All data are provided in full in the results section of this paper.

Notes

  1. The planned and enacted curriculum according to Remillard framework are considered as documents in sense of the Documentational approach of didactics as they encompass resources in use (Remillard, 2019, p.177).

  2. When not specified, the expression “professional knowledge” is used in a broad way related to the professional dimension of the teacher’s work and conceived as a whole without distinguishing between its different types.

  3. In this model, Coulet (2019) defined competence as the pair (situation, scheme).

  4. The teacher’s documentation work is based on different types of resources and the list of resources proposed in the analyses and in the document status tables is far from being exhaustive.

  5. The experiment lasted for three months of follow-up, during which two classroom implementation lessons were recorded, spaced at five-week intervals.

  6. The methodological contract is defined as “the formalization of a set of mutual expectations between the researcher and the teacher (or group of teachers), […] The methodological contract must make it possible to formalize part of the relationship between researcher and teachers, where the researcher is to be, as much as possible, an outsider.” (Loisy et al., 2019, p. 263).

  7. Laborde (2005) distinguishes two paradigms of use of variation in DGE: robust constructions (where the drag mode preserves the properties of the construction. Thus, variation is used as a verification means). Soft constructions (where the variation is part of the construction and a property becomes visible only when another is satisfied. The soft constructions offer a transition from an empirical approach to theoretical approach).

  8. The interviews were in Arabic language and translations into English provided here are personal translations.

  9. Personal translation from the teacher’s declaration during the interview.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Virtual University of Tunis, ISEFC, UR 16E S10, ECOTIDI, 2019, Tunis, Tunisia

    Faten Khalloufi-Mouha

  2. Faculty of Sciences of Bizerte, University of Carthage, 7021, Bizerte, Tunisia

    Faten Khalloufi-Mouha

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  1. Faten Khalloufi-Mouha
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Khalloufi-Mouha, F. Evolution of teachers’ professional learning when using a technological resource: a case study of a Tunisian primary school teacher. Educ Stud Math (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10649-024-10320-w

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