Pedagogical strategies used by an outstanding mathematics teacher: a case study in Region IV of Chile / Estrategias pedagógicas utilizadas por una profesora destacada en matemáticas: un estudio de caso en la IV Región de Chile

Abstract

How does a maths teacher rated as outstanding according to the ‘DocenteMás’ Performance Assessment System of Chile semiotically mediate her seventh-grade students’ learning? With the goal of answering this question, this article used a qualitative, ethnographic case study method to describe the pedagogical strategies of the teacher and her students when covering the thematic unit on numbers and operations in primary school. The results show that the pedagogical strategies emerge from the communicative interaction in the classroom via a local and a global dynamic. With regard to the local dynamic, the pedagogical strategies discovered include exposition, experiential articulation and arithmetic understanding. In the global dynamic, pedagogical strategies of semiotic mediation like metaphors, question series and joint understanding of knowledge stood out.