Teachers’ tactics when programming and mathematics converge

Abstract: Teachers’ everyday practices are embedded in school contexts in which their teaching autonomy is constrained by rules, moral obligations, physical settings,and official directives. When a curricular revision mandated that programming was to be a part of mathematics in upper secondary education, teachers’ conditions changed. How teachers adapted to the new curriculum and how they navigated the tensions and contradictions that they encountered is in this thesis analyzed in terms of teachers’ tactics and policy strategies. The overall goal of the investigation is to contribute to a critical understanding of how mathematics teachers integrate programming in their professional practice and how this integration aligns and diverges from the intentions behind the reform. The empirical material is drawn from nine individual interviews with mathematics teachers that were already proficient in programming. The teachers’ unit plans and other lesson materials featuring programming activities served as a trigger point to delve into further reflections upon their own professional practices. To complete the scene, the policy documents were also examined. These included the mathematics curriculum, as well as related official documents and a collection of institutionally sanctioned programming exercises and demonstrations.Two tactical approaches were made apparent when mathematics teachers began to integrate computer programming in their subject: Dual teaching and Interspersed programming. The teacher’s use of dual teaching practices or interspersed programming are tactics shaped by and in response to the conditions of the new curriculum and their own preferences and views on student learning. These two tactics disclose different ontological commitments in relation to the strategies dictated by the curriculum and reflect a cardinal distinction between planning mathematics activities with elements of programming and planning programming activities with elements of mathematics. Of relevance for teachers and curriculum designers is the understanding of (a) how the notion of programming and mathematics as separate subjects oversimplifies teachers’ actual integration practices, and (b) how the curricular choices made by policy can shape the teaching tactics adopted by educators.