Researchers and teachers involved in professional development: is convergence possible?

The aim of this study is to discuss how specific educational researchers’ choices, regarding the design of a professional development (PD) program for in-service mathematics teachers, influence the praxeologies of both the teachers and the researchers. In particular, we aim to highlight what learning mechanisms are activated by these choices. We use the Meta-Didactical Transposition (MDT) and the Boundary Object (BO) frameworks to describe the interactions between the two communities involved in the PD program, the researchers’ and the teachers’ one. The choices regarding the design of the program, made by the researchers, trigger internalization processes for both communities, as a result of the learning mechanisms activated during the joint work on a BO. These internalization processes led to an evolution of the initial praxeologies of the two communities and to the creation of a new, shared praxeology.