Research Work in a Secondary School Classroom: How Well are Teachers Equipped for it?
A university degree is not enough in itself to equip a mathematics teacher for successful secondary school-teaching in the longer term. Without continuous training and career-long learning, a teacher will not be able to provide adequate support for students in activities such as extended essays or explorations, both of which are compulsory components of the IB programme. In this paper, we present some examples of such work by IB students at our school. In addition, some Slovenian secondary school students regularly participate in a national research competition for which they must submit project-based work in various fields. The present article describes how university departments co-operated with our secondary school in the course of such research. Examples of research carried out by a number of 16-year-old students at our school are also presented here.