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Methods course documentation
Analyzing classroom vignettes from an inquiry perspective (D5.2)
Logistics and scheduling information (by Raffaella Borasi)

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Scheduling of this activity within the program

Choice of scope and format for this activity

Materials/equipment needed to implement this activity

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Scheduling of this activity within the program:

We did not have the opportunity to implement this activity in implementations A, B or C of the In-service program usually documented in these materials. Instead, we chose to use this activity at the very beginning of a new Local Systemic Change Project (funded by the National Science Foundation) that involved several of the teachers who had participated in those programs. This activity then provided us with the opportunity to revisit with this group of teachers their visions of school mathematics and their understanding of the principles of an inquiry approach, as we were trying to forge a new collaboration towards school mathematics reform.

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Choice of scope and format for this activity:

Given the context described above, we chose to engage all the participants in the analysis of the same vignette -- first individually during the meeting itself, and then in a whole group discussion to be recorded on newsprint. The vignette that we chose for this analysis was the narrative of one class from Judi Fonzi's high school math course on geometry, where the students were challenged to create on their own the construction of a triangle given two angles and a side adjacent only to one of these angles -- the text distributed to the participants was a slightly edited version of the narrative of this instructional episode as reported in Borasi, R. (1996). Reconceiving Mathematics Instruction: A Focus on Errors. NY: Ablex.

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Materials/equipment needed to implement this activity:

• enough copies of vignette for each participant -- a photocopy-ready version of the vignette we used in this activity can be found in the Instructional materials for Section D5.2
• several compasses and rulers -- so that the participants could recreate on their own the constructions discussed in the vignette, if they wish to do so
• newsprint, markers and tape -- to record the results of the large group discussion

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