Abstract

Perspective representation is an essential and traditional topic in teaching spatial geometry in many countries. Within the trend of realistic mathematics education, the new Vietnamese General Education Program in Mathematics has introduced a new requirement for eleventh-grade students: using knowledge of parallel projection to describe an authentic image. However, studies have shown that transitioning from a presentation by observation (close to linear projection) to one by parallel projection is a learning obstacle for students. This raises an issue for teacher education at pedagogical universities: what training scenario can help pre-service teachers improve their didactical knowledge of describing an authentic image by parallel projection? This paper presents an empirical consecutive study with two experiments. The first with eleventh-grade students is a didactical situation representing a photographic image of a corridor through drawings. In the second, pre-service teachers are asked to analyze (a priori and a posteriori) and adjust the didactical situation of the first one implemented in the classroom. The findings revealed that pre-service teachers understand the didactical intention, but their ability to analyze students’ strategies and the underlying knowledge or misconceptions was limited. The study’s methodology approach underscores the necessity of integrating practical, scenario-based learning within teacher education programs and can be reused in the case of other mathematics topics.