Teaching and Learning Experience: A Student and Teacher Vision

Many experiences on the application of new teaching and learning methodologies in mathematics have been presented in recent years. In higher education and more specifically in the teaching of mathematics in engineering these experiences are quite rare. Lesson Study (LS), a professional development process for teachers created in Japan, is practically non-existent in higher mathematics education in Portugal. However, the fact that teachers work together to plan, teach and reflect on a research lesson can play an important role in improving the quality of teaching and learning at this academic level. This paper intends to present the opinion and reflections of a group of teachers on the effect of their participation in a LS. The experiment was carried out in the Mathematical Analysis I course unit with twenty-five undergraduate students in Electrical Engineering, during the first semester of 2021/2022. The Newton-Raphson Method for solving nonlinear equations was the chosen topic, using GeoGebra as dynamic content. The experience involved the participation of four mathematics teachers and a PhD student in Education (mathematics didactics) who is also mathematics teacher in higher education in Brazil, in eight online weekly sessions of one hour and a half each, and in a 2-hour face-to-face session. For seven weeks the chosen topic was studied and adapted to be presented to the students. The following week, the class was taught by one of the teachers, and the other participants observed and wrote down some information. In the last session the reflections of the teachers and students present in the class were analysed. The final observations of this study suggest that LS is important in the context of training, in view of a reflective and improved pedagogical practice. As such, it should be included, whenever possible, in the planning of mathematics lessons for engineering and for higher education in general.