Fibonacci[1] is a large-scale EU funded professional development project which is focused on the dissemination of Inquiry-Based Science and Mathematics Education. Around 36 centres from 21 countries across Europe are working with groups of teachers, developing inquiry-based approaches in science or mathematics, or both. Fibonacci builds on two previous projects, one of which was concerned with primary science, and the other mainly with mathematics.

Underlying the design of Fibonacci are some implicit assumptions:

•       that the activities of scientists and mathematicians are based on inquiry,

•       that the process of inquiry is the same (or very similar) in both disciplines,

•       that the meaning of inquiry is understood in the same way by participants in the project, who may come from mathematics or science backgrounds.

Initial experiences within the project raised awareness that differences in meaning exist not simply across languages, but also between different disciplinary, intellectual and pedagogic perspectives, and led us to believe that these assumptions are worth investigating.

The core description of inquiry-based education given on the project website is phrased in terms of science, although there is an implicit assumption that the description could be applied to teaching mathematics. Indeed within the project documentation the phrase ‘scientific inquiry’ is used in relation to both subjects.

While doing science, the teacher focuses on the intentional process of diagnosing problems, criticizing experiments, distinguishing alternatives, planning investigations, researching conjectures, searching for information, constructing models, debating with peers, forming coherent arguments.  (Fibonacci, 2011)

In common with definitions given within the mathematics education literature, there is a clear suggestion here that classroom activity should mirror that of ‘real’ researchers in the discipline. However it is interesting to contrast the Fibonacci view with the definition of inquiry in mathematics given by Jaworski (2004).

Inquiry in (school) mathematics can be seen to follow the activity of research mathematicians, and lead to a recognition of the value of processes such as specializing and generalizing, conjecturing, convincing and proving. (p. 24)

Our focus within the project is on developing an integrated approach to teaching mathematics and science. We are therefore concerned about how notions of inquiry within the two disciplines can be made coherent, in the similarities and differences in how mathematics and science as disciplines are viewed by practitioners, and how these might be translated to the classroom. In particular we are interested to investigate the following questions:

1.    do practitioners hold different views about the nature of mathematics and of science?

2.    do practitioners hold different views about the learning and teaching of mathematics and of science?

3.    does the subject background of practitioners affect their views the nature of mathematics and science, or about the learning and teaching of mathematics and of science?

[1] The FIBONACCI Project - Large scale dissemination of inquiry based science and mathematics education, FP7-SCIENCE-IN- SOCIETY-2009-1, Grant Agreement Number 244684

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