Valero, P., Perry, P. y Gómez, P. (1997). The teaching of mathematics from within the school. A Colombian Experience. En V. Zack, J. Mousley y C. Breen. Developing practice: Teachers’ inquiry and educational change (pp. 113-122). Geelong: Centre for Studies in Mathematics, Science and Environmental Education.
The MEN-EMA Project was an exploratory study whose two main aims were to approach the predicaments of school mathematics in ten state schools in Bogotá, Colombia, and to design and apply a strategy for the professional in-service training of both school heads and mathematics teachers. By means of an action-research methodology, on the one hand, the researchers implemented a professional development series of seminars for the principal and the head of the department of mathematics of the schools selected and for two mathematics teachers from each. And on the other hand, the researchers created a space to interact with the elements involved in the predicaments of school mathematics as a mean to generate knowledge about them. As results of the whole Project, the paper presents the main features of the innovative professional development strategy implemented and its effects on the structure of the school linked to mathematics education. This paper mainly focuses on the results related to the approach and understanding of the dynamics of the organization of the school in the specific functioning of mathematics within the institution. The idea of the Institutional System of School Mathematics is exposed. There is also a description of the different states such a system took before and after the implementation of the professional training strategy. A presentation of an ideal state of the system is included as a reference point towards which it is desirable to impulse change within the schools.
