Meta-resources: Supporting the Design of Mathematics Teaching and Learning

In this chapter, we introduce the notion of meta-resource, defined as a material resource which has been explicitly designed for supporting mathematics teachers’ planning of teaching and learning activities. Our perspective on meta-resources is underpinned by the documentational approach to didactics. We claim that meta-resources are an important element in teachers’ design landscape, and that digital meta-resources contribute to the transformation of this landscape. Our aim in this chapter is to identify, searching the literature, categories of meta-resources, and the affordances and constraints brought by digital meta-resources. We observe that meta-resources can be classified according to their aim, in terms of aspect of teacher design they should support. We identified six different aims: Choosing resources; Designing learning progressions; Designing lesson plans individually; Task design; Assessment design; Designing collectively in the context of professional development. We present a review of the literature, organized according to these six aims. We discuss the developments linked with digital meta-resources. These digital meta-resources can facilitate teachers’ choice of resources and can offer new possibilities for teachers’ individual and collective planning of teaching and learning activities. At the same time, digital MRs impose constraints on teachers’ planning activities, and offer new possibilities of control to the educational authorities. We explore the conceptualization of meta-resources, beyond our initial definition as material resources designed to support teachers’ lesson planning activity. We call for more research about meta-resources, as an important element for teachers’ documentation work and professional development.