Interdisciplinarity and second transition: novices’ attention towards examples in mathematics and physics

This study concerns pre-service teacher education at university level, with a special focus on interdisciplinarity. The process of becoming teachers tackles the issue of the second transition from university to teaching at school, where a discontinuity can occur. Such discontinuity usually concerns university students who cannot connect university knowledge of mathematics to knowledge useful to teach. We reflect on the second transition for interdisciplinary teachers starting from the analysis of a discussion with pre-service mathematics and physics teachers about two physics textbooks during a university course in mathematics education. The analysis is centred on their structure of attention with respect to examples and exemplification.