Italian teachers' reports

Report about the discussion with visiting IT teachers

Before the visit

Due to the sudden and unpredictable resignment of the selected student teacher, early before departure, the visit to the BRG Marchettigasse school in Wien was made by two teachers rather than by one teacher and one student teacher. In fact it was not possible, in less than one month to identify and suitably prepare another student teacher who was available to go and teach in Wien in German; therefore, we drew on the fortunate availability of a second teacher who got the chance to teach in germany in the past.
The specific preparation of the two teachers to the visit was therefore completely different. The first teacher, Rossella Masi, had the time and possibility of attending a thirty-hour teaching sequence for a specific training to the teaching of mathematics abroad in a foreign language at the University of Pisa. In the unit particular attention was paid to the differences in cultural contexts, to the linguistic formation in the mathematical context as well as to the teaching units chosen for experimentation. The second teacher, Anna Maria Pascale, necessarily had to draw on her own expertise and will to collaborate. Rossella also had the opportunity to attend an advanced German course at the University Inter-departmental Linguistic Centre, since she had not had the chance to use German regularly since her secondary school years. The fact that Anna Maria mastered German fortunately (due to our restricted timing) did not require any linguistic training activity.
Given this situation, contacts with the teacher of the school to be visited in Wien were completely different in the two cases. Through a fruitful exchange of e-mails, Rossella Masi got all the needed information before the observation and teaching visit; she was thus able to organize her own teaching activity, in collaboration with the hosting teacher. In the case of Anna Maria Pascale these contacts were very few ad the visit was prepared almost exclusively on the basis of her, fortunately, rich expertise in teaching and of her talks with the project’s coordinator.

During the visit

The classroom observation activity was extremely useful for both teachers, although limited by the structure of the school timetable in the host classes.
As widely predicted, in the two teaching units (Rossella: introduction to Pythagoras’ theorem– Anna Maria: equivalence of fractions) both teachers had to and wanted to adapt the teaching sequence to the actual needs of the respective classes, showing professional skills that enabled them to overcome unpredicted obstacles, such as, for instance, coming to know that the topic ‘equivalence of fractions’ had already been sufficiently dealt with …
However, the presence and full availability to collaborate of the hosting teacher throughout the visit was an element of serenity for both teachers.

Italian teachers' reports

Report about the discussion with visiting IT teachers

Before the visit

During the visit

Reports and Videoclips