Research topics
The main guidelines of the research activity of the group of Mathematics Education are:
- The study of the mathematics laboratory intended as an environment for teaching and learning aimed at encouraging experimentation and planning by students;
- Cooperative learning as a model for teaching-learning to achieve disciplinary educational goals and social and relational objectives;
- The study of the cognitive processes of an argumentative nature involved in the activities of communication, discussion, argumentation, formulation of conjectures, production of examples, non-examples and counterexamples, production of demonstrations;
- The study of the role of artefacts (technological and manipulatives) in the teaching-learning of mathematics with a particular focus on the semiotic processes involved in the construction and evolution of meanings in relation to the use of the artifacts themselves.
The research group is involved in several teacher professional development projects.
For research in the History of Mathematics, aspects related to the development of mathematics are explored, especially in the 19th century:
- Mathematics and mathematicians in the “Scuola Normale” annexed to the Faculty of Sciences starting from 1875: The study of the role that mathematics played in the training of teachers and young researchers in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, one of the most fruitful periods for mathematics in the University of Pavia;
- Mathematical Physics in Eugenio Beltrami’s teaching and research: Study of Beltrami’s work in mathematical physics, contextualisation of the results he obtained and recovery of unpublished teaching material.
- Felice Casorati and the development of complex analysis in the second half of the nineteenth century: Recovery of unpublished material that allows completing the study of the role played by Casorati in research and didactics of complex analysis.