Different modes in teachers' discussions of students' mathematical texts

• Interviews with nineteen mathematics teachers in groups.
• Teachers' collective discussions on students' mathematical texts.
• Teachers work in two modes when assessing students' texts: a pedagogical mode and an assessment mode.
• Teachers move seamlessly between these modes.

The study aims to examine elementary school mathematics teachers' ways of discussing students' mathematical texts. Nineteen teachers were interviewed in groups and asked to discuss 15 texts. The object of study is the teachers' collective discussions, analyzed using a discourse analytic approach. Findings indicate that two different modes are visible in the discussions: a pedagogical mode, connected to the teachers' position as pedagogues and where identification of students' strategies is foregrounded, and an assessment mode, connected to the teachers' position as examiners, in which a deficiency perspective is adopted that views particular features as ‘missing’ from the texts.