MOOCs for mathematics teacher education: new environments for professional development

For some years now, even in Italy, a new acronym is appeared: MOOC (Massive Open Online Course). This led to the project Math MOOC UniTo: MOOCs for the education of secondary school mathematics in-service teachers, at the Department of Mathematics “G. Peano” of the University of Turin, Italy. The purpose of this chapter is to present this educational experience, showing that teachers attending a MOOC can benefit from professional development. In fact, if the online environment is supported by precise methodological choices using technological resources, participants learn to socialize their skills and can reflect on how these can be implemented in their teaching. As a theoretical lens will be used a new elaborated framework, the so-called MOOC-MDT, to analyse these new online educational environments. Teachers’ online practices are analysed by focusing on their contribution to communication message boards and on the consequent conception and growth of their particular community.