My doctoral research deals with the worldwide trend of digitalization which accentuates school mathematics teachers’ responsibility in developing students’ digital skills. While research in the field of ICT integration in mathematics has focused on finding teachers’ barriers that impede the effective use of technology, I choose to study the discursive formation that gives meaning to ICT integration.

Oficial documents in regards to ICT integration in mathematics education, such as school curricula and guidelines for teacher education, are some of the sources of discourse that might influence teachers’ sensemaking on ICT integration. For that reason, I look for traces on how this discursive process permeates the mandatory assignments formulated at the teacher education level and what preservice teachers do during practicum in regards to ICT integration.

My goal is to understand how mathematics teachers make sense of ICT integration. I approach this aim by analyzing the curricular and educational discourses that might influence the decision-making of pre-service teachers in the use of ICT for the teaching of mathematics. My hope is to make an impact in teacher education so preservice teachers’ understandings are considered for professional learning.

The sources of discourses in which I am interested are:

• Norwegian public guidelines for teacher education.
• The formulation of mandatory assignments and course syllabi for MGBMA101 written by HVL teacher educators (TEs)
• The written mandatory assignments for MGBMA101 written by HVL preservice teachers (PTs)
• Oral conversations between PTs and TEs

Current research questions:

1. How do Preservice Teachers recontextualize discourses on ICT integration into school mathematics?
2. How do Teacher Educators recontextualize discourses on ICT integration into mathematics teacher education?
3. What kind of discourses of ICT integration into school mathematics can be identified in policy documents?

This PhD study is an action-research project which aims to investigate what reflections on teaching does a teacher educator pay attention to when changing the practices about supporting pre-service teachers (PTs) in language-responsive mathematics teaching in their school classrooms. In particular, the setting of the practice is focused on the two compulsory courses at Western Norway University of Applied Sciences: the first one occurs in the second semester of the first year (autumn semester), and the second in the first semester of the second year (spring semester) of a new five-year Master of Education. The courses integrate mathematics and pedagogy and use Norwegian as a main language of instruction. To support language-responsive actions by PTs, I as a teacher educator will make use of Lucas and Villegas’ (2013) two-part framework of linguistically-responsive teaching, in considering how to change my practices when introducing PTs to working with Norwegian language learners in mathematics classrooms. In each phase of the action research cycle (plan, act, observe, reflect) I will use multiple levels of reflection linked to action (Schön, 1987), which I will document in a research reflection journal in written and/or audio forms, before and after the action. This will consist the primary source for data collection, followed by audio-recording the teaching action in the PT education courses, field notes at the teaching action, samples of PTs’ work, and discussions with critical peers from the local scientific community of teacher educators on audio-tape. These tools can inform changes I make to my teaching in the compulsory courses and allow me to review the action and retrace instances of my practices in relation to the research question. In my research, noticing will be used as an analytical tool to report, understand and interpret the reflections on my teaching that I pay attention to regarding changes in my practices in the teacher education context in the course of time.

My Ph.D. research aims to investigate preservice primary school teachers’ views on, and use of, argumentation in mathematics education. I have three research questions:

1. How do preservice primary teachers argue when evaluating mathematical arguments?
2. How do preservice primary school teachers argue when teaching mathematics in primary school
3. How do preservice primary school teachers engage primary school students in argumentation when teaching mathematics?

The research has a qualitative approach. I will do a video observation of student teachers when teaching mathematics during practice training and audio-recorded interviews with both student teachers and their practice training supervisor.

The first research question will be answered through data from interviews with student teachers. The students will be interviewed in their practice training groups. The interview will focus on their mathematical argumentation, and on their argumentation when teaching mathematics. I will give the students a statement and several ways of defending this statement. Through a discussion about what is the best way of convincing others that the statement is true, I will get the data to answer the research question.

To answer research question 2 and 3, I use video observations from student teachers’ mathematics teaching, audio recordings from supervision by practice training supervisors and audio recordings from interviews with practice training supervisors. The interviews with the practice training supervisors will aim at finding out what development the supervisor observes, encourages and disapproves with the student teachers. This will give me information about the background for the students’ choices, to what extent they are students’ own independent choices or a result of the supervisors’ guidance.

The recordings will be transcribed and analysed. I will identify the discourse by which the student teachers construct mathematical arguments for themselves and for school students; and what discursive space, including gestures and use of artefacts, they provide for their school students engagement with mathematical argumentation. Processes of argumentation will be analysed with methods that are based on Toulmin’s theory of argumentation (Toulmin, 1958), as described by Krummheuer (2015).

The research will contribute to a deeper understanding of student teachers’ ways of promoting argumentation in primary school mathematics classrooms. This can have implications for teacher education, and be a ground for future research on how to support student teachers how to teach argumentation in primary school classrooms.