School Practices With The Mathematical Notion Of Tangent Line

We seek to understand the process of learning mathematical notions as forms of practice in the classrooms of two different technical school courses. More specifically, we investigate students’ and teachers’ experiences and use of the mathematical concept of tangent line in these different contexts. We use empirical data collected through non-participant observation, analysis of students’ written responses to a questionnaire, and semi-structured interviews with groups of six students from each course observed. We take a situated perspective of learning which enables us to see these classroom activities as genuinely mathematical, though distinct. Through our analysis, we describe aspects of what we see as the common direction of learning mathematics in the two vocational course lessons; this is found to be closer to ‘being mathematical’ in work settings than in school mathematics classrooms.