From instrumental to relational – Malawi mathematics teacher educators’ research lessons

International audience This paper discusses the type of research lesson planned by mathematics teacher educators participating in a lesson study cycle. An earlier study found that mathematics teacher educators’ research questions were not clearly formulated and as a reason, their initial lesson plans for research lessons did not make student teachers’ learning visible. This follow up study analysed the lesson plans further before and after comments from knowledgeable others and looked into the type of lesson planned to be conducted, with the hypothesis that the type of lesson would determine the type of student teacher learning made visible. Data in form of lesson plans were collected from five teacher education colleges. Theory driven content analyses was used and Skemp’s (1976) categories of instrumental and relational teaching were the point of departure. The findings include that the initial lesson plans were mostly presenting instrumental type of lessons, but after comments from the knowledgeable others, the revised lesson plans were presenting a more relational type of lessons with student teachers’ learning more visible.