The practice of knowledge and knowing about one’s practice in geometry: the analysis of a movement experienced by a group of teachers working at the first years of Elementary School

Abstract

The aim of this article is to analyze the movement between collective and individual work
experienced by a of collaborative work group, constituted in a public school on the countryside
of Jundiaí, SP. The study included the participation of four Elementary School teachers, one
coordinator and one researcher-educator. The group had regular meetings in 2005 and 2006 in
order to learn geometry and then teach it to their students. The analyzed documents included the
transcription of initial interviews and refl exive talks, the researcher-educator’s fi eld diary, the transcription of audio recordings of meetings, and narratives produced by the teachers. The movement
experienced by the group shows that the teachers evolved from the state of not knowing geometry
as a curricular element to a period of empirical work with geometry and then, with practice, to the state of (re)valuing their professional knowledge in geometry. Such change was made possible by
theoretical reading, classroom experience and the production of written narratives.