Session Information
24 SES 07, The Lexicon Project: Seeing what we can name in middle school mathematics classrooms internationally
Symposium
Contribution
This presentation will describe the motivation, process, obstacles and rewards of construction of the Czech lexicon within the frame of the International Lexicon Project. The lexicon not only provides a rich list of terminology, but each term is illustrated by several examples of what is actually meant by the term, supplemented by illustrative video segments and also by non-examples to show what the term does not refer to. The main methodological approach was open and axial coding of episodes from classroom video recordings. The presentation will describe the process of production of the national lexicon as well as obstacles encountered and how they were overcome. The presentation will answer the following research question: “What is the structure of terms in the Czech language suitable for description of a lesson of mathematics?” The current version of the Czech lexicon will be shown. The structure of entries in the Czech lexicon is significantly affected by the fact that terms describing the course of mathematics lessons (that is, their chronological structure) formed the basis of the lexicon. The viewing of video recorded lessons from nine different countries showed how difficult it is to use the Czech lexicon to describe practices not typical of Czech mathematics lessons. Thus, there were many phenomena that could generally described and illustrated by a video excerpt but not labelled with a specific Czech term. We argue that the cultivation of subject didactic discourse among the Czech education community is one of the prerequisites to the emancipation of subject didactics. Work on the Czech lexicon highlighted some of the difficulties of research and practical work in the area of mathematics education. The ongoing process of validation of the Czech lexicon shows how difficult it is for Czech teachers to speak of lessons in general terms. Czech teachers tended to pass many evaluating judgements and discuss the conception of the lesson and assess its quality rather than describe the classroom interactions in general terms. They also tended to use everyday language rather than pedagogical terminology. This suggests that a professional lexicon is needed by the Czech teaching community. Such a lexicon is necessary for understanding research reports focused on mathematics instruction and can be useful for researchers, teachers, pre-service teachers and policy makers. Documentation of the content and structure of a Czech Lexicon is essential to deepen the Czech teaching community’s understanding of the processes occurring in a mathematics classroom.
References
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