Digitizing real practice for teacher eduction programmes: The MILE approach

Key words: realistic mathematics teacher education; Multimedial Interactive Learning Environment (MILE); theory and practical knowledge; reflective conversation; cyclic investigation process; levels of knowledge construction Abstract This chapter will give readers insight into the potential of using information technology in primary school mathematics teacher education. The emphasis will be placed on describing the possibilities that are available to teacher education students, the underlying theoretical orientation and the perspective of finding a promising approach to some all too familiar problems in teacher education. The technology involved will not be discussed. The illustrations are taken from both the (digitally recorded) primary school teaching environment and the colleges of education, in which student teachers investigated this environment during the first two years of the MILE project in the Netherlands. This took place in pilot projects at 15 colleges during the 1997-1998 school year. One of these pilot projects focused on the case of two teacher education students of the Amsterdam College of Higher Professional Education, who were tutored by Wil Oonk. This is referred to below as the D&H case.