Resumen

How do teachers deal with tensions in discourses when they implement mathematical modelling in pedagogic practices? This question is discussed – following Basil Bernstein’s theoretical framework – based on a study of three middle school teachers from Brazilian public schools. The nature of the research is qualitative. The procedures used for collecting data were observation (accomplished through recordings of lessons), interviews after each lesson and teachers’ documentation of their lessons. In this paper, we will show how teachers dealt with the tension of unexpected situations. The results suggest that teachers understand that the modelling task requires producing a legitimate text to develop it in their pedagogic practices. Teachers dealt with the following unexpected situations: students presented errors in mathematical procedures, students did not bring the requested information to the task, students chose different parameters the teachers had not predicted, students failed to solve the problems of the task and students resisted doing the task. These unexpected situations were related to the following student actions in the modelling environment: students’ mathematical performance in solving the task problem, noncompliance of tasks in the modelling environment and students’ choice of the subject in a modelling environment.