Reflections of prospective teachers on the didactic suitability and use of a textbook lesson

Abstract

A textbook lesson describes the intended instructional process for studying a content and is therefore a relevant resource for teachers, who must be critical when deciding how to use it in their curriculum planning. This study describes and analyses the reflections of prospective teachers on the degree of appropriateness of a proportionality textbook lesson, its mode of use, and the changes they would make to increase the didactic appropriateness of the instructional process implemented. The qualitative analysis of their written reports allows us to identify how prospective teachers refer to didactic suitability criteria in their evaluations. The results show that the future teachers reflect correctly on epistemic aspects (lack of argumentation, lack of clarity in the presentation of concepts, lack of variety of situations and representations), cognitive aspects (lack of attention to prior knowledge, failure to warn students of errors and difficulties) and instructional aspects (the lesson prioritises the procedural aspect and leaves interactions between students in the background). Although the majority identify semiotic conflicts in the lesson and recognise that the text should be a resource on which changes should be made for efficient management, the modifications they propose only partially refer to the assessment made previously, prioritizing changes in the epistemic (varying the typology of tasks) and cognitive (including summaries of previous content). We conclude this study with a proposal for improvements for subsequent training interventions.

Reflective Competence; Didactic Suitability; Mode of Use; Textbook; Proportionality