Designing with Digital Technologies: The Influence of a Professional Development Program on Teachers’ Beliefs

The present study, carried out in the context of a Teacher Professional Development (TPD) Program on mathematical modelling and digital technologies, focuses on how Italian mathematics teachers refer to digital technologies in designing their lessons and investigates to what extent the TPD program impacted the way by which teachers design their lessons using technologies. To this end, teachers’ lesson plans in two different moments of the TPD program have been analysed using the TPACK model. The data shows that at the beginning of the TPD program, teachers used to design their lessons without referring to pedagogical aspects. This leads to argue that a teachers’ belief seems t o emerge, namely that knowing the features of digital technologies is sufficient to design teaching activities with technology in relation to specific mathematical contents. However, the TPD program appears to have had a positive impact on teachers’ knowledge because, at the end of the program, they refer to a greater extent to pedagogical aspects (TPK and TPACK) in their design.