for the learning of mathematics

an international journal of mathematics education

Jenni Ingram - Vol. 34 Num. 3 (2014)
 Shifting attention

19-24
 ABSTRACT:

This article examines the shifts in attention and focus as one teacher introduces and explains an image that represents the processes involved in a numeric problem that his students have been working on. This paper takes a micro-analytic approach to examine how the focus of attention shifts through what the teacher and students do and say in the interaction that introduces the image. The different foci and structures in attention afford the making of different connections between the image presented and the original numeric problem but also the different relationships within the image and what they are representing.