From the historical text to the classroom session: analysing the work of teachers-as-designers

While classical studies have highlighted the many potential benefits of using original historical sources in the classroom, few studies have documented actual classroom practices outside of research contexts. In this case study, I aim to describe and explain how five French high school teachers autonomously designed and implemented classroom sessions starting from the same document, namely an excerpt from Euler’s Elements of Algebra presenting an algorithm for square root approximation. From a methodological viewpoint, it enables me show how two general frameworks for the study of teachers’ professional practices—the Documentational Approach to Didactics and the Didactic and Ergonomic Double Approach—can be tailored to fit the specific challenges of using historical sources. The empirical results provide fresh insights into the conditions for a mathematically rich use of historical sources in the classroom, and on the connections between this use and the integration of a historical perspective in the teaching of mathematics.