Enseñar a enseñar matemáticas: concepciones, creencias y verdades

Abstract

The levels of achievement of mathematics learning in the country have not undergone improvements in recent years, since international assessments reveal that we are still relegated to the last places, as well as national evaluations show us that high percentages of students still remain at the lowest levels. These results lead us to reflect on what is being done wrong with respect to the teaching-learning of such an important area. This research seeks to show the conceptions, beliefs and pedagogical practice that teachers in service and in training have through the review of the literature. It was found that conceptions are a set of beliefs that the teacher has regarding a subject, and that these beliefs are formed from the experiences that are formed during the course of their professional practice and part of their pedagogical training. This reveals the great responsibility that teacher trainers have, since the conceptions of teaching and learning mathematics are born in university classrooms and are revealed in the professional practice itself. From the studies reviewed it is concluded that a traditional conception of teaching-learning predominates strongly, where teachers consider that learning concepts and solving exercises represents the success of learning mathematics. From the above, the importance of the initial training of teachers and the responsibility of the trainers are revealed, who must reflect on which of the traditional or constructivist idealistic conceptions should be applied to improve the achievement of student learning and raise the low levels in national and international evaluations.