Contrasting perspectives between the teacher and students: a reflection on the learner’s perspective study

Abstract

The Learner’s Perspective Study (LPS) has provided a vehicle for the work of an international community of classroom researchers. The distinguishing characteristic of the research design for the LPS is the inclusion of complementary accounts of classroom events. Among the different levels of complementarity, the current paper focuses on the various accounts of classroom participants to discusses how we take the teacher and students perspectives together by contrasting and juxtaposing them to explore the co-constructed nature of mathematics classroom. By referring to previous studies in the LPS as well as to a “spin-off” study, the author argues that examining participant perspectives on the same classroom event provides better understanding of and insights into classroom practice with expanding the researcher’s perspective.