Math Teacher Continuing
Education Using the Internet
Paulo Cezar Pinto Carvalho
IMPA – Brazil
[email protected]
Basic education in Brazil



Brazil has done very badly in international
educational evaluations, especially in
Mathematics.
For example, in 2006, Brazil ranked 53rd among
the 56 countries that participated in PISA.
National evaluations also show that students are
much below what should be expected for their
age or grade.
Some of the causes
Inadequate curricula and text books (but a
lot of improvement in recent years).
 Little incentive for the teaching career
(pay, social status, school structure).
 Poorly trained teachers (in contrast with
the high level of Math research in Brazil).

About IMPA
IMPA is the Brazilian National Institute of
Pure and Applied Mathematics.
 Mission

 High-level
research in Mathematics
 Diffusion of Mathematics
 Contribution to Mathematical education in all
levels
The teacher continuing education
program at IMPA

Created in 1991.
 Elon
Lima (IMPA’s director at the time)
 Augusto Morgado
 Eduardo Wagner
 Paulo Cezar Carvalho


Week-long, full-time courses.
A series of books (16 titles) specifically written
for math teachers, published by the Brazilian
Mathematical Society
The teacher continuing education
program at IMPA

1991-2001
 Course
at IMPA, held twice a year (January
and July), for about 180 teachers
 Replicated, with other teams, in a few other
places in Brazil
The teacher continuing education
program at IMPA

2002-present
 Internet
used to broadcast lectures to many
participating sites in Brazil
 Resources: Millenium Institute (World Bank
and CNPq), FINEP, …
 Support: RNP (the academic internet in
Brazil)
Course structure

Lectures (9:00 – 12:00)

Problem solving and discussion in small groups
(1:30 – 3:00)

General discussion (3:30 – 5:00)
Course structure



Lectures (9:00 – 12:00)
Broadcast through the Internet
Textual chat used for questions and comments
Problem solving and discussion in small groups
(1:30 – 3:00)
Done locally
General discussion (3:30 – 5:00)
Done locally
Attendance

January 2002:
6
sites
 6 states
 350 teachers
Attendance

July 2009:
 27
sites
 26 states
 2500 teachers
Encoding, broadcasting and
reproduction
Router
VLAN Switch
Vlan
Multicast Video Server
Technical chat
Lecture chat
Video encoder and
recorder
Availability

All lectures are available for download at
http://strato.impa.br
 Sample
lecture
Lectures are made available as recorded
(no editing)
 Also available on DVDs distributed by
IMPA.

Conclusion



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Good example of the academia getting involved
with basic education
Made possible by IMPA’s leadership (other
attempts in other areas in Brazil not so
successful)
Material available for Portuguese-speaking
countries.
Easy to reproduce in other countries.
Far from solving Math literacy in Brazil.