Education paper by Szász, Réka
Study Abroad in Mathematics Teacher Education on Hungarian Guided Discovery (Accepted)
Type of Abstract (select):Abstract (max. 250 words):
In this talk, I will present an approach to teacher education used at Budapest Semesters in Mathematics Education (BSME), a study abroad program in Hungary for American and international preservice and inservice teachers. The program’s goal is for participants to learn about the guided discovery pedagogy used in Hungarian secondary mathematics classrooms, stemming from the work of Tamás Varga. At BSME, we challenge participants’ view of mathematics through tasks drawn from various fields including art, music and language, and provide them the pedagogical and methodological tools to likewise challenge their future students. To this end, participants play the dual role of a student and a teacher. As students, they work on mathematical tasks that provide them with the experience of guided discovery; as teachers, they reflect on this experience, and create and teach their own such tasks. In the talk, I will illustrate this method of teacher education by presenting simple guided discovery tasks that are used in BSME classes and by describing how BSME participants engage in task design and reflection. I will also discuss how the BSME method was adapted for online settings.
No background in Mathematics is necessary for the audience of the talk.
Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Réka Szász is the Hungarian Director of Budapest Semesters in Mathematics Education, and she teaches English and Mathematics at the Lauder Javne School in Budapest. In her PhD she studied differentiated instruction in the Hungarian Mathematics Classroom, then she conducted research on developing the mathematical knowledge of teachers at the University of Toronto. For most of her career she taught on the secondary level and in teacher education simultaneously.