Abstract
Is it possible that a meeting of mathematicians and primary school teachers will
be productive? This question became intriguing when one professor of mathematics initiated
a professional development course for practicing primary school teachers, which he
taught alongside a group of mathematics Ph.D. students. This report scrutinizes the
uncommon meeting of these two communities, who have very different perspectives on
mathematics and its teaching. The instructors had no experience in primary school
teaching, and their professed goal was to deepen the teachers’ understanding of the
mathematics they teach, while teachers were expecting the course to be pedagogically
relevant for their teaching. Surprisingly, despite this mismatch in expectations, the course
was considered a success by teachers and instructors alike. In our study, we analyzed a
lesson on division with remainder for teachers of grades 3–6, taught by the professor. The
framework used for the data analysis was mathematical discourse for teaching, a discursive
adaptation of the well-known mathematical knowledge for teaching framework. Our
analysis focuses on the nature of the interactions between the parties and the learning
opportunities they afforded. We show how different concerns, which might have hindered
communication, in fact fueled discussions, leading to understandings of the topic and its
teaching that were new to all the parties involved. The findings point to a feasible model
for professional development where mathematicians may contribute to the education of
practicing teachers, while they are gaining new insights themselves.
