seminars and meetings in 2020-21
************************* SiG in the time of COVID ************************
The SIG will be online via Microsoft Teams until further notice. If you wish to attend a 'Seminar Series' event please email [email protected] to request an invitation to the online meeting.
*************************************************************************
We are working to make the SIG more inclusive. Part of this is improving our communication about what the different types of meetings are for and who is welcome to attend.
Seminar series - everyone welcome! As title suggests, all are welcome to attend Seminar series events. See note above how to request an invite to the Teams meeting.
Reading Group - everyone welcome! All are welcome to attend Reading Group events. We select and discuss readings of interest to the group.
Work in progress These meetings are open to UCL staff and post-graduate research students. Through work-in-progress meetings we aim to provide a supportive environment in which to develop research, teaching and other projects in mathematics education from initial ideas right through to publication.
Team meeting These meetings are for IoE Mathematics Education staff only. The SiG time-slot is a convenient time for staff to come together to support each other and discuss administrative matters. These meetings mainly occur at the start and end of term.
Autumn term
10 September 2020 12.30-14.00 Informal team meeting
How was your summer? An informal team meeting for people to say hi and catch up with each other after the summer break.
17 September 2020 12.30-14.00 Team meeting
Welcome back everyone! An opportunity for the maths team to discuss what's coming up in the year ahead and what we want to see at the SIG in 2020-2021.
24 September 2020 12.30-1400 Reading Group - everyone welcome!
Dicussion of paper by Duval.
Duval, R. (2006) A cognitive analysis of problems of comprehension in a learning of mathematics. Educational studies in mathematics, 61(1-2), 103-131.
https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10649-006-0400-z.pdf
1 October 2020 12.30-14.00 Seminar series - everyone welcome!
Remote mathematics teaching during COVID-19: intentions, practices and equity
Jeremy Hodgen, Laurie Jacques and Rosa Kwok
In this session, we will present the findings from research into remote teaching of mathematics in Year 7 during lockdown. The research was conducted with Heads of Mathematics from schools taking part in the Student Grouping Study and was based on survey and interview evidence. We will discuss the implications of the findings for teacher education as well as for practice in schools going forward.
If you want to read something prior to the SiG, you could try Becky Taylor's piece in Schools Week on this project.
8 October 2020 12.30-14.00 Team meeting
Discussion of the possibilities of an MA in Maths Ed and Digital Technologies and of our strategy with PhD students.
15 October 2020 12.30-14.00 Reading Group - everyone welcome!
Discussion of paper by Elia et al.
Elia, I., Panaoura, A., Eracleous, A., & Gagatsis, A. (2007). Relations between secondary pupils’ conceptions about functions and problem solving in different representations, International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education, 5, 533-556.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10763-006-9054-7
22 October 2020 12.30-14.00 Work in progress
Initial Nuffield Bids
Jennie Golding, Eirini Geraniou, Caroline Hilton, Helen Thouless and Nicola Bretscher
Two small teams within our larger group have recently put in an initial Nuffield bid. In this session we will discuss our process of putting together the bid.
29 October 2020 12.30-14.00 Team meeting
An informal meeting over half-term
5 November 2020 12.30-14.00 Work in progress
TBC
12 November 2020 12.30-14.00 Work in progress
Can GeoGebra’s Augmented Reality tool provide “a looking glass into a mathematical wonderland”?
Katie Riding
GeoGebra is a dynamic mathematics software which has been well researched within the mathematics education community (and beyond); however, the majority of this literature does not examine the recent edition to the GeoGebra family, GeoGebra 3D Calculator with Augmented Reality (GeoGebra 3D/AR). The central focus of the study was to examine the epistemological affordances (and constraints) of GeoGebra’s augmented reality tool/environment. The global pandemic brought about a myriad of technological change and, with respect to this study, propelled a second technological tool/environment to the fore, teaching, learning and researching within the ‘Zoom classroom’. The study was conducted over two ‘virtual workshops’ and examined how nine primary school students constructed dynamic, ‘AR manipulatives’ to model familiar household objects. Participants’ interactions were analysed through Bruner’s enacted-iconic-symbolic framework. The secondary focus (albeit unplanned), adopted the lens of TPACK in an attempt to evaluate the impact of teaching, learning and researching within a virtual environment.
19 November 2020 12.30-14.00 Seminar series - everyone welcome!
Teachers’ use of reform-oriented mathematics textbooks: A multiple-case study of Delhi government primary school teachers
Meghna Chowdhuri
India in the last two decades has introduced several policy reforms to improve primary school mathematics teaching and learning, especially to make it more accessible for children. Based on these reforms, the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) developed new primary school mathematics textbooks. These books are a radical departure from traditional mathematics textbooks, as they explicitly restructure its form, pedagogy and mathematical content. The crucial enabling link in actualising transformational ideals in textbooks are, the teachers. Yet, both in India and globally, very little is understood on how teachers use textbooks in their teaching.
To fill this gap, my study explores how teachers view and use textbooks in a reform context. The study adopts a participatory view of the relationship between the textbook and the teacher; which is both influenced by the textbook’s features as well teachers’ thinking. The study explores the cases of ten primary school teachers in Grades 4 and 5, in four government schools of Delhi. Data were collected from classroom observations, semi-structured teacher interviews, and textbooks. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the textbooks, classroom observations as well as interviews.
The textbook analysis reveals that several pedagogical changes are introduced within the textbook. The reformed textbook challenges the authority relations between school mathematics and the learner. Additionally, social justice messaging is implicitly embedded within the textbook. Teachers in turn make textbook related choices at two levels: first, at the level of task selection; second at an interpretive level. Challenging the predominant understanding of textbooks-centric teaching, my findings show that teachers use a range of strategies to engage with the textbook. These include following the textbook as a script, customising it to fit their own notions of mathematics teaching and institutional realities, as well as avoidance of the textbooks and the subject all together. There are two important implications of the study. First, in relation to producing reform oriented textbooks, the thesis argues for a simultaneous focus on teachers must be maintained, so that textbooks become educative materials for professional development. Second, the study also highlights the significance of institutional and cultural opportunities and barriers in enabling teachers’ productive interpretations of textbooks.
26 November 2020 12.30-14.00 Work in progress
Preliminary discussions of research to evaluate the transition to online participation in the light of the changes due to COVID-19: student perceptions of gains and losses in terms of collaborative learning.
Elizabeth Lake
In these unprecedented circumstances it is essential to capture the experiences of some of the unique 2020 ITT cohort who have lived the course from face-to-face to unexpected online learning. Using the principles of collaborative learning that identify the role of a collaboratively orientated teacher (Swan, 2005), this research aims to explore whether and how such principles are maintained as students transition between beginning their ITT with a face-to-face model into online teaching and learning. The first phase is a thematic analysis of interviews with four students. In the interviews, the student teachers discuss their experience of a series of online sessions in the 2020 summer term. These sessions were peer-to-peer online teaching of A-level. The eight student taught sessions followed tutor-led online sessions where the principles of collaborative learning at A-level were emphasised. The SIG session calls for commentary on this first phase of interview data analysis, aimed at first response to the research question: How did a cohort of ITE students adapt to the transition from face to-face university learning experiences to participation in online teaching and learning?
3 December 2020 12.30-14.00
***Re-scheduled for Jan 14th, Seminar series - everyone welcome!***
Teaching mathematics with digital technology - Surveying the field
Alison Clark-Wilson
Due to unavoidable reasons, this seminar has been re-scheduled for Jan 14th. Many apologies for any inconvenience. We will still have an informal meeting for UCL staff and PGR students to catch up with each other. Also at around 1pm, Eirini will share some updates on the online CERME event, which is planned for Feb 2021.
10 December 2020 12.30-14.00 Work in progress
Discussion of the ACME/ RS call for views Mathematical Futures Programme - what is the future of mathematics education?
Jennie Golding
Please see the Royal Society's 'Mathematical Futures Call for Views' document available on Sharepoint.
The Royal Society's call for views is about the nature of mathematics as now used, and the implications for the future of mathematics in education. Note that mathematics is defined quite broadly, to include e.g. ‘computing’. These are important questions, so it’s equally important that the Royal Society get responses from people (like us!) who are both knowledgeable and reflective about the nature of mathematics, and the nature and purposes of education and so, curriculum. I hope that’s a discussion we’ll find interesting, and that will result in a useful contribution to the debate.
17 December 2020 12.30-14.00 Team meeting
We will be continuing...
... our discussion of the ACME/ RS call for views Mathematical Futures Programme - what is the future of mathematics education?
Plus, for staff, an opportunity to catch up on the MA Mathematics Education dissertation module, led by Cosette Crisan.
Spring term
7 January 2021 12.30-14.00 Informal team meeting
Discussion of the coming term.
14 January 2021 12.30-14.00 Seminar series - everyone welcome!
Teaching mathematics with digital technology - Surveying the field
Alison Clark-Wilson
A recently published Survey paper for ZDM- Mathematics Education that forms part of an Open Access Special Issue on "Teaching with digital technologies" is proving to be highly topical as global education systems grapple with how to teach mathematics during the pandemic. Although the SI papers were written long before the Covid-19 pandemic, the Survey Paper includes a number of themes that are key to making sense of teachers’ evolving practices as they aim to maintain learners’ access to, and engagement with the mathematics curriculum.
This seminar will focus on three key areas that are proving particularly challenging right now, namely:
1. Making sense of the range of technology resources for teaching mathematics and their multiple roles within teaching and learning.
2. Understanding how [mathematics] teacher competencies/practices are conceptualised - and methods for evidencing these within professional practices.
3. Problemetising how we can use (1.) and (2.) to make sense of how teachers' practices are evolving to respond to the demands of remote and blended teaching.
It is recommended that seminar attendees familiarise themselves with the themes of the Survey paper, which is available here: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11858-020-01196-0
21 January 2021 12.30-14.00 Work in progress
The design principles of an online professional development short course for mentors of mathematics teachers
Cosette Crisan and Eirini Geraniou
12.30-13.30 In this presentation we will describe the design principles and content of an online asynchronous short course contributing to the professional development of prospective Mentors of Mathematics Teachers. We aimed at bringing together the participating teachers’ expertise and wisdom of practice, and the evidence from relevant research and professional literature in mathematics education through carefully designed online activities and ‘lightly’ orchestrated peer collaborations. We expect our course to develop the participating teachers’ appreciation of how their gained knowledge from research and literature empowers them to critically reflect on their own teaching practices and on how they support the practices of teachers they mentor.
13:30-14:00 CERME 12 Eirini will lead a session using Zoom with those colleagues who will take part in the virtual pre-CERME 12 event.
28 January 2021 12.30-14.00 Seminar series - everyone welcome!
Mathematical development: evidence from Neurodevelopmental disorders
Jo Van Herwegen
Development in children is impacted by genetic as well as environmental factors, such as parenting styles, education, and wider societal aspect amongst others. In addition, there is more and more evidence that certain domain general abilities early on in life (such as for example attention) may be domain relevant factors that drive the development of domain specific abilities later on in life. Understanding mechanisms of cognitive development, including the interaction of domain general and domain specific abilities over development as well as factors that drive individual differences, is important to develop interventions and target support to those who most benefit from this support. In this talk, I will discuss how studies examining development in neurodevelopmental disorders, including Down syndrome and Williams syndrome, can further our understanding of how different cognitive abilities interact and shape cognitive development in both typical and atypical populations and what this might mean for interventions. I will draw on studies related to mathematical development in different neurodevelopmental disorders and discuss the strengths as well as difficulties related to cross-syndrome comparisons.
4 February 2021 Conferences
No SiG due to Virtual pre-CERME12 event and TIMSS 2019 Conferences
11 February 2021 12.30-14.00 Team meeting
Doctoral supervision in mathematics education
Jennie Golding & Jeremy Hodgen
Jeremy and Jennie will lead a SIG discussion about doctoral supervision-related matters: different doctoral routes, recruitment, support and selection of applicants, shared experiences of what makes for successful supervision relationships – and completion of doctorates-, what we as a MEG can do to promote doctoral student participation in a research culture…. Opportunity also for Q&A with our more experienced supervisors. If there’s anything particular you’d like to address, please let Jennie know.
18 February 2021 12.30-14.00 Team meeting
An informal meeting over half-term
25 February 2021 12.30-14.00 Seminar series - everyone welcome!
Teaching Mathematics Education to Mathematics and Education Undergraduates
Elena Nardi
Courses that introduce Mathematics Education as an academic discipline now feature increasingly in the syllabi of Mathematics undergraduate degrees as well as in the syllabi of Education undergraduate degrees. In this seminar, I will report from a study I am currently working on with Irene Biza which builds on our experiences of design, teaching, assessment and evaluation of two introductory modules in Research in Mathematics Education (RME) to final-year BA Education and BSc Mathematics students in one Education and one Mathematics Department in the UK. I will draw on data collected during formative and summative assessments for the two modules and consist of students’ written responses to activities from the MathTASK programme as well entries in the students’ portfolios submitted at the end of each module. I will sample from our data analysis which we conduct through commognitive (Sfard, 2008) constructs tailored to a typology of four characteristics of engagement with RME discourses (Biza, Nardi & Zachariades, 2018): consistency, specificity, reification of mathematical discourse, reification of pedagogical discourse. Finally, I will identify and reflect on the different epistemological and pedagogical challenges (e.g.: Nardi, 2015; Biza & Nardi, 2020) posed by our roles as those who welcome these two quite different communities of learners into RME. Addressing these challenges has implications for university-level teaching practice. It also has wider implications as we see teaching these modules as a quintessential opportunity for rapprochement between the communities of mathematics, education and mathematics education research. For a flavour of the work I will be reporting in this session, you may wish to take a look at this journal article and this chapter.
4 March 2021 12.30-14.00 Reading Group - everyone welcome!
Discusssion of paper by Erath, Prediger, Quasthoff, & Heller
Erath, K., Prediger, S., Quasthoff, U., & Heller, V. (2018). Discourse competence as important part of academic language proficiency in mathematics classrooms: the case of explaining to learn and learning to explain. Educational Studies in Mathematics, 99, 161–179. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10649-018-9830-7
11 March 2021 12.30-14.00 Work in progress
A personal ‘outsider’s’ journey with reflections on teaching and learning mathematics in west and southern Africa
Teresa Smart, IOE Visiting Research Associate
In February 2020 I spent 2 weeks in Accra the capital of Ghana monitoring a project that was part of a multimillion pound aid programme to improve Girls’ education chances across 15 countries. During my visit I met with my A-level mathematics students from 50 years ago. These students were the first to have gone through education from primary to university in Nkrumah’s newly independent Ghana. Using the case studies of Ghana and Mozambique with side trips to Kenya and Zimbabwe I will look at how mathematics teaching flourished and then struggled. Many of the challenges are explained by the pressure of the Millennium Development goal, the cuts to the education budget demanded by the International Monetary Fund, the short sightedness of many donor agencies and NGOs and many other factors out of the control of Government ministries.
18 March 2021 12.30-14.00 Work in progress
Practical session: Promoting Learning from Variation: Coding and analysing a lesson transcript
Laurie Jacques
In this practical session, I first will introduce the analytical framework and qualitative methodology that I am using with some of my PhD data (video of lessons) to understand how a community of teachers construct a pedagogy associated with promoting mathematical learning using procedural variation tasks. I will share a transcript of the first cycle of three, from a lesson study teaching episode (25mins) with Y5 pupils on the topic of division of proper fractions by an integer. After sharing the analytic framework, I will ask you to work in smaller breakout groups (in TEAMS) to collaboratively code a segment of the transcript (in Word*, highlighting and comments) using the coding framework. We will then come back together to compare coding and discuss the process. The aim of this session is not to necessarily to validate my coding, but to raise any issues around the potential codes, enable me to field questions about the methodological approach (good practice for my defence) and analysis and for others to comment and critique insights for further consideration.
Although not essential for the session, you may be interested in this paper which analyses a different set of data in an exploratory study that preceded and influenced the doctoral data collection.
Jacques, L., & Clark-Wilson, A. (2020). Developing Questions and Prompts: English Primary Teachers’ Learning about Variation through Lesson Study. ICMI Study 25: Teachers of mathematics working and learning in collaborative groups, 348-355. University of Lisbon.
25 March 2021 12.30-14.00
1 April 2021 12.30-14.00
University holiday
Summer term
22 April 2021 12.30-14.00 Work in progress
Flow and its relationship with the mathematics classroom
Sipho Morrison
Using a phenomenological approach, I investigated the multi-dimensional model of the flow phenomenon and its interdependence with the mathematics classroom. Learners of mathematics often have a great enjoyment when carrying out mathematical activities. I contend this experience can be labelled as flow. The flow experience has been described as being in the ‘zone’. Flow refers to the experience of a learner. The learner is totally absorbed in a task to the exclusion of all else with a complete connection and successful outcome. Flow experiences can improve educational experiences for students in the secondary mathematics classroom by heightening enjoyment, intrinsic motivation and creativity. Between 2015 and 2016 I carried out an 18-month longitudinal study with a group of secondary students, anticipating how flow can assist positive relationships with mathematics. I recorded, videoed and questioned students’ experiences of flow in the classroom. I argue first, that from examining how flow occurs in the mathematics classroom, I have constructed an understanding of its appearance to the classroom observer and attended to its perceived benefits. A second contribution of the research is that flow, a quality of experience, positively affects learning in the mathematics classroom, and is a feasible vector for teacher development.
29 April 2021 12.30-14.00
Bidding for EEF funds: reflecting on the process
Jeremy Hodgen
Jeremy Hodgen will discuss the bid that he is preparing for this call by the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) and will reflect on other work he has carried out for the EEF:
https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/about/tenders/review-of-evidence-on-implementation-in-education-call-for-proposals/?utm_source=site&utm_medium=search&utm_campaign=site_search&search_term=implementation%20review
6 May 2021 12.30-14.00 Reading Group - everyone welcome!
Nicola Bretscher
Will lead a discussion of the recent paper by Colin Foster, Tom Francome, Dave Hewitt & Chris Shore in Journal of Curriculum Studies entitled: Principles for the design of a fully-resourced, coherent, research-informed school mathematics curriculum https://doi.org/10.1080/00220272.2021.1902569
Thanks to Cosette for suggesting the paper!
13 May 2021 12.30-14.00 Reading Group - everyone welcome!
We plan to read one or two papers from the ZDM issue (Vol 53, Issue 1, April 2021) on Mathematics Teacher Noticing: Exploring and Expanding the Terrain.
I chose the following paper since, as a systematic review, I thought it might provide a useful overview of research on noticing. Also we haven’t read a systematic review paper at the SiG in my memory, so I thought the type of paper might be interesting too. There were plenty of other interesting papers in the issue too, so apologies if you would have preferred to read another one! from Nicola and thanks to Jennie for suggesting the Special Issue as a focus.
Santagata, R., König, J., Scheiner, T. et al. Mathematics teacher learning to notice: a systematic review of studies of video-based programs. ZDM Mathematics Education 53, 119–134 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11858-020-01216-z
20 May 2021 12.30-14.00 Seminar series - everyone welcome!
Automated assessment of tertiary mathematics at UCL
Ben Davies and Ruth Reynolds
In this talk, we will introduce the automated assessment project from the UCL Department of Mathematics. From AY2020, the department is implementing STACK-based assessment for the majority of modules across the first two years of the undergraduate programme. This raises several concerns about the pedagogic and social implications of such large-scale change, and presents various opportunities for educational research in these areas. We seek feedback on our own research plans to this end, and invite others to propose collaborations based on the multitude of potential data available through this project.
27 May 2021 12.30-14.00 Team meeting
SiG futures: planning for next academic year
Nicola Bretscher, Laurie Jacques & Sinéad Vaughan
We have begun to book presenters for SiG dates in the new academic year. This has raised the question of how and in what mode or blend or combination/hybrid of modes we wish to run the SiG next year. There have been some clear benefits to running online, forced due to the Covid pandemic of course. So we want to use this SiG as an opportunity to review and discuss the pros and cons and possibilities for running sessions next year to support our planning. Thanks in advance for your input and support :-)
3 June 2021 12.30-14.00 Team meeting
An informal meeting over half-term
10 June 2021 12.30-14.00
CTTR seminar: potential for engaging with and helping to shape the work of the centre
Mark Hardman
As part of ongoing discussion within the Centre for Teachers and Teaching Research, Mark Hardman will flesh out the current thinking around its direction, as well as suggest some early ideas about ways that members of the SIG can engage with and be supported by the centre. CTTR has a remit to both develop world-leading research into teacher education and to build capacity in the research conducted by ITE colleagues, so this is an opportunity to help shape the activities of the centre.
17 June 2021 12.30-14.00
The Teaching Maths for Social Justice Network (TMSJN)
Pete Wright
The Teaching Maths for Social Justice Network – a network for teachers of mathematics in all school phases committed to addressing issues of equity and social justice in the classroom – was launched in April 2021. This meeting will provide an opportunity to reflect on the first meeting of the network and to consider/discuss the following questions:
24 June 2021 12.30-14.00 Work in Progress
Mathematical Futures: analysis of the Call for Views
Jennie Golding & Teresa Smart
In Nov/Dec 2020 we developed a SIG response to the Royal Society ‘Call for Views’ on the future of mathematics and mathematics education. A small number of colleagues also made individual responses to the call. The underlying questions of the Mathematical Futures Programme (MFP) are:
1 July 2021 12.30-14.00 Work in Progress
Pedagogical preferences: Exploring the potential of, and adapting, a 'noticing' task to facilitate a meaningful mathematical experience
Timothy Clark and Laurie Jacques
This session will focus on a mathematical task for KS3 that was shared in an online community as a ‘problem of the week’ which Laurie came across. Curious about its design, Laurie explored the task herself and shared her thoughts with Tim by email. This developed into an informal exchange of ideas about how the task might be ‘reshaped’ in the light of our own pedagogical preferences. We will share the original task and our own thoughts from our email exchange before inviting the SiG attendees to critique the original task and suggested revisions, based on their own pedagogical preferences and imagined contexts.
8 July 2021 12.30-14.00
End of year social. Enjoy your summer! :-)
************************* SiG in the time of COVID ************************
The SIG will be online via Microsoft Teams until further notice. If you wish to attend a 'Seminar Series' event please email [email protected] to request an invitation to the online meeting.
*************************************************************************
We are working to make the SIG more inclusive. Part of this is improving our communication about what the different types of meetings are for and who is welcome to attend.
Seminar series - everyone welcome! As title suggests, all are welcome to attend Seminar series events. See note above how to request an invite to the Teams meeting.
Reading Group - everyone welcome! All are welcome to attend Reading Group events. We select and discuss readings of interest to the group.
Work in progress These meetings are open to UCL staff and post-graduate research students. Through work-in-progress meetings we aim to provide a supportive environment in which to develop research, teaching and other projects in mathematics education from initial ideas right through to publication.
Team meeting These meetings are for IoE Mathematics Education staff only. The SiG time-slot is a convenient time for staff to come together to support each other and discuss administrative matters. These meetings mainly occur at the start and end of term.
Autumn term
10 September 2020 12.30-14.00 Informal team meeting
How was your summer? An informal team meeting for people to say hi and catch up with each other after the summer break.
17 September 2020 12.30-14.00 Team meeting
Welcome back everyone! An opportunity for the maths team to discuss what's coming up in the year ahead and what we want to see at the SIG in 2020-2021.
24 September 2020 12.30-1400 Reading Group - everyone welcome!
Dicussion of paper by Duval.
Duval, R. (2006) A cognitive analysis of problems of comprehension in a learning of mathematics. Educational studies in mathematics, 61(1-2), 103-131.
https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10649-006-0400-z.pdf
1 October 2020 12.30-14.00 Seminar series - everyone welcome!
Remote mathematics teaching during COVID-19: intentions, practices and equity
Jeremy Hodgen, Laurie Jacques and Rosa Kwok
In this session, we will present the findings from research into remote teaching of mathematics in Year 7 during lockdown. The research was conducted with Heads of Mathematics from schools taking part in the Student Grouping Study and was based on survey and interview evidence. We will discuss the implications of the findings for teacher education as well as for practice in schools going forward.
If you want to read something prior to the SiG, you could try Becky Taylor's piece in Schools Week on this project.
8 October 2020 12.30-14.00 Team meeting
Discussion of the possibilities of an MA in Maths Ed and Digital Technologies and of our strategy with PhD students.
15 October 2020 12.30-14.00 Reading Group - everyone welcome!
Discussion of paper by Elia et al.
Elia, I., Panaoura, A., Eracleous, A., & Gagatsis, A. (2007). Relations between secondary pupils’ conceptions about functions and problem solving in different representations, International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education, 5, 533-556.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10763-006-9054-7
22 October 2020 12.30-14.00 Work in progress
Initial Nuffield Bids
Jennie Golding, Eirini Geraniou, Caroline Hilton, Helen Thouless and Nicola Bretscher
Two small teams within our larger group have recently put in an initial Nuffield bid. In this session we will discuss our process of putting together the bid.
29 October 2020 12.30-14.00 Team meeting
An informal meeting over half-term
5 November 2020 12.30-14.00 Work in progress
TBC
12 November 2020 12.30-14.00 Work in progress
Can GeoGebra’s Augmented Reality tool provide “a looking glass into a mathematical wonderland”?
Katie Riding
GeoGebra is a dynamic mathematics software which has been well researched within the mathematics education community (and beyond); however, the majority of this literature does not examine the recent edition to the GeoGebra family, GeoGebra 3D Calculator with Augmented Reality (GeoGebra 3D/AR). The central focus of the study was to examine the epistemological affordances (and constraints) of GeoGebra’s augmented reality tool/environment. The global pandemic brought about a myriad of technological change and, with respect to this study, propelled a second technological tool/environment to the fore, teaching, learning and researching within the ‘Zoom classroom’. The study was conducted over two ‘virtual workshops’ and examined how nine primary school students constructed dynamic, ‘AR manipulatives’ to model familiar household objects. Participants’ interactions were analysed through Bruner’s enacted-iconic-symbolic framework. The secondary focus (albeit unplanned), adopted the lens of TPACK in an attempt to evaluate the impact of teaching, learning and researching within a virtual environment.
19 November 2020 12.30-14.00 Seminar series - everyone welcome!
Teachers’ use of reform-oriented mathematics textbooks: A multiple-case study of Delhi government primary school teachers
Meghna Chowdhuri
India in the last two decades has introduced several policy reforms to improve primary school mathematics teaching and learning, especially to make it more accessible for children. Based on these reforms, the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) developed new primary school mathematics textbooks. These books are a radical departure from traditional mathematics textbooks, as they explicitly restructure its form, pedagogy and mathematical content. The crucial enabling link in actualising transformational ideals in textbooks are, the teachers. Yet, both in India and globally, very little is understood on how teachers use textbooks in their teaching.
To fill this gap, my study explores how teachers view and use textbooks in a reform context. The study adopts a participatory view of the relationship between the textbook and the teacher; which is both influenced by the textbook’s features as well teachers’ thinking. The study explores the cases of ten primary school teachers in Grades 4 and 5, in four government schools of Delhi. Data were collected from classroom observations, semi-structured teacher interviews, and textbooks. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the textbooks, classroom observations as well as interviews.
The textbook analysis reveals that several pedagogical changes are introduced within the textbook. The reformed textbook challenges the authority relations between school mathematics and the learner. Additionally, social justice messaging is implicitly embedded within the textbook. Teachers in turn make textbook related choices at two levels: first, at the level of task selection; second at an interpretive level. Challenging the predominant understanding of textbooks-centric teaching, my findings show that teachers use a range of strategies to engage with the textbook. These include following the textbook as a script, customising it to fit their own notions of mathematics teaching and institutional realities, as well as avoidance of the textbooks and the subject all together. There are two important implications of the study. First, in relation to producing reform oriented textbooks, the thesis argues for a simultaneous focus on teachers must be maintained, so that textbooks become educative materials for professional development. Second, the study also highlights the significance of institutional and cultural opportunities and barriers in enabling teachers’ productive interpretations of textbooks.
26 November 2020 12.30-14.00 Work in progress
Preliminary discussions of research to evaluate the transition to online participation in the light of the changes due to COVID-19: student perceptions of gains and losses in terms of collaborative learning.
Elizabeth Lake
In these unprecedented circumstances it is essential to capture the experiences of some of the unique 2020 ITT cohort who have lived the course from face-to-face to unexpected online learning. Using the principles of collaborative learning that identify the role of a collaboratively orientated teacher (Swan, 2005), this research aims to explore whether and how such principles are maintained as students transition between beginning their ITT with a face-to-face model into online teaching and learning. The first phase is a thematic analysis of interviews with four students. In the interviews, the student teachers discuss their experience of a series of online sessions in the 2020 summer term. These sessions were peer-to-peer online teaching of A-level. The eight student taught sessions followed tutor-led online sessions where the principles of collaborative learning at A-level were emphasised. The SIG session calls for commentary on this first phase of interview data analysis, aimed at first response to the research question: How did a cohort of ITE students adapt to the transition from face to-face university learning experiences to participation in online teaching and learning?
3 December 2020 12.30-14.00
***Re-scheduled for Jan 14th, Seminar series - everyone welcome!***
Teaching mathematics with digital technology - Surveying the field
Alison Clark-Wilson
Due to unavoidable reasons, this seminar has been re-scheduled for Jan 14th. Many apologies for any inconvenience. We will still have an informal meeting for UCL staff and PGR students to catch up with each other. Also at around 1pm, Eirini will share some updates on the online CERME event, which is planned for Feb 2021.
10 December 2020 12.30-14.00 Work in progress
Discussion of the ACME/ RS call for views Mathematical Futures Programme - what is the future of mathematics education?
Jennie Golding
Please see the Royal Society's 'Mathematical Futures Call for Views' document available on Sharepoint.
The Royal Society's call for views is about the nature of mathematics as now used, and the implications for the future of mathematics in education. Note that mathematics is defined quite broadly, to include e.g. ‘computing’. These are important questions, so it’s equally important that the Royal Society get responses from people (like us!) who are both knowledgeable and reflective about the nature of mathematics, and the nature and purposes of education and so, curriculum. I hope that’s a discussion we’ll find interesting, and that will result in a useful contribution to the debate.
17 December 2020 12.30-14.00 Team meeting
We will be continuing...
... our discussion of the ACME/ RS call for views Mathematical Futures Programme - what is the future of mathematics education?
Plus, for staff, an opportunity to catch up on the MA Mathematics Education dissertation module, led by Cosette Crisan.
Spring term
7 January 2021 12.30-14.00 Informal team meeting
Discussion of the coming term.
14 January 2021 12.30-14.00 Seminar series - everyone welcome!
Teaching mathematics with digital technology - Surveying the field
Alison Clark-Wilson
A recently published Survey paper for ZDM- Mathematics Education that forms part of an Open Access Special Issue on "Teaching with digital technologies" is proving to be highly topical as global education systems grapple with how to teach mathematics during the pandemic. Although the SI papers were written long before the Covid-19 pandemic, the Survey Paper includes a number of themes that are key to making sense of teachers’ evolving practices as they aim to maintain learners’ access to, and engagement with the mathematics curriculum.
This seminar will focus on three key areas that are proving particularly challenging right now, namely:
1. Making sense of the range of technology resources for teaching mathematics and their multiple roles within teaching and learning.
2. Understanding how [mathematics] teacher competencies/practices are conceptualised - and methods for evidencing these within professional practices.
3. Problemetising how we can use (1.) and (2.) to make sense of how teachers' practices are evolving to respond to the demands of remote and blended teaching.
It is recommended that seminar attendees familiarise themselves with the themes of the Survey paper, which is available here: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11858-020-01196-0
21 January 2021 12.30-14.00 Work in progress
The design principles of an online professional development short course for mentors of mathematics teachers
Cosette Crisan and Eirini Geraniou
12.30-13.30 In this presentation we will describe the design principles and content of an online asynchronous short course contributing to the professional development of prospective Mentors of Mathematics Teachers. We aimed at bringing together the participating teachers’ expertise and wisdom of practice, and the evidence from relevant research and professional literature in mathematics education through carefully designed online activities and ‘lightly’ orchestrated peer collaborations. We expect our course to develop the participating teachers’ appreciation of how their gained knowledge from research and literature empowers them to critically reflect on their own teaching practices and on how they support the practices of teachers they mentor.
13:30-14:00 CERME 12 Eirini will lead a session using Zoom with those colleagues who will take part in the virtual pre-CERME 12 event.
28 January 2021 12.30-14.00 Seminar series - everyone welcome!
Mathematical development: evidence from Neurodevelopmental disorders
Jo Van Herwegen
Development in children is impacted by genetic as well as environmental factors, such as parenting styles, education, and wider societal aspect amongst others. In addition, there is more and more evidence that certain domain general abilities early on in life (such as for example attention) may be domain relevant factors that drive the development of domain specific abilities later on in life. Understanding mechanisms of cognitive development, including the interaction of domain general and domain specific abilities over development as well as factors that drive individual differences, is important to develop interventions and target support to those who most benefit from this support. In this talk, I will discuss how studies examining development in neurodevelopmental disorders, including Down syndrome and Williams syndrome, can further our understanding of how different cognitive abilities interact and shape cognitive development in both typical and atypical populations and what this might mean for interventions. I will draw on studies related to mathematical development in different neurodevelopmental disorders and discuss the strengths as well as difficulties related to cross-syndrome comparisons.
4 February 2021 Conferences
No SiG due to Virtual pre-CERME12 event and TIMSS 2019 Conferences
11 February 2021 12.30-14.00 Team meeting
Doctoral supervision in mathematics education
Jennie Golding & Jeremy Hodgen
Jeremy and Jennie will lead a SIG discussion about doctoral supervision-related matters: different doctoral routes, recruitment, support and selection of applicants, shared experiences of what makes for successful supervision relationships – and completion of doctorates-, what we as a MEG can do to promote doctoral student participation in a research culture…. Opportunity also for Q&A with our more experienced supervisors. If there’s anything particular you’d like to address, please let Jennie know.
18 February 2021 12.30-14.00 Team meeting
An informal meeting over half-term
25 February 2021 12.30-14.00 Seminar series - everyone welcome!
Teaching Mathematics Education to Mathematics and Education Undergraduates
Elena Nardi
Courses that introduce Mathematics Education as an academic discipline now feature increasingly in the syllabi of Mathematics undergraduate degrees as well as in the syllabi of Education undergraduate degrees. In this seminar, I will report from a study I am currently working on with Irene Biza which builds on our experiences of design, teaching, assessment and evaluation of two introductory modules in Research in Mathematics Education (RME) to final-year BA Education and BSc Mathematics students in one Education and one Mathematics Department in the UK. I will draw on data collected during formative and summative assessments for the two modules and consist of students’ written responses to activities from the MathTASK programme as well entries in the students’ portfolios submitted at the end of each module. I will sample from our data analysis which we conduct through commognitive (Sfard, 2008) constructs tailored to a typology of four characteristics of engagement with RME discourses (Biza, Nardi & Zachariades, 2018): consistency, specificity, reification of mathematical discourse, reification of pedagogical discourse. Finally, I will identify and reflect on the different epistemological and pedagogical challenges (e.g.: Nardi, 2015; Biza & Nardi, 2020) posed by our roles as those who welcome these two quite different communities of learners into RME. Addressing these challenges has implications for university-level teaching practice. It also has wider implications as we see teaching these modules as a quintessential opportunity for rapprochement between the communities of mathematics, education and mathematics education research. For a flavour of the work I will be reporting in this session, you may wish to take a look at this journal article and this chapter.
4 March 2021 12.30-14.00 Reading Group - everyone welcome!
Discusssion of paper by Erath, Prediger, Quasthoff, & Heller
Erath, K., Prediger, S., Quasthoff, U., & Heller, V. (2018). Discourse competence as important part of academic language proficiency in mathematics classrooms: the case of explaining to learn and learning to explain. Educational Studies in Mathematics, 99, 161–179. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10649-018-9830-7
11 March 2021 12.30-14.00 Work in progress
A personal ‘outsider’s’ journey with reflections on teaching and learning mathematics in west and southern Africa
Teresa Smart, IOE Visiting Research Associate
In February 2020 I spent 2 weeks in Accra the capital of Ghana monitoring a project that was part of a multimillion pound aid programme to improve Girls’ education chances across 15 countries. During my visit I met with my A-level mathematics students from 50 years ago. These students were the first to have gone through education from primary to university in Nkrumah’s newly independent Ghana. Using the case studies of Ghana and Mozambique with side trips to Kenya and Zimbabwe I will look at how mathematics teaching flourished and then struggled. Many of the challenges are explained by the pressure of the Millennium Development goal, the cuts to the education budget demanded by the International Monetary Fund, the short sightedness of many donor agencies and NGOs and many other factors out of the control of Government ministries.
18 March 2021 12.30-14.00 Work in progress
Practical session: Promoting Learning from Variation: Coding and analysing a lesson transcript
Laurie Jacques
In this practical session, I first will introduce the analytical framework and qualitative methodology that I am using with some of my PhD data (video of lessons) to understand how a community of teachers construct a pedagogy associated with promoting mathematical learning using procedural variation tasks. I will share a transcript of the first cycle of three, from a lesson study teaching episode (25mins) with Y5 pupils on the topic of division of proper fractions by an integer. After sharing the analytic framework, I will ask you to work in smaller breakout groups (in TEAMS) to collaboratively code a segment of the transcript (in Word*, highlighting and comments) using the coding framework. We will then come back together to compare coding and discuss the process. The aim of this session is not to necessarily to validate my coding, but to raise any issues around the potential codes, enable me to field questions about the methodological approach (good practice for my defence) and analysis and for others to comment and critique insights for further consideration.
Although not essential for the session, you may be interested in this paper which analyses a different set of data in an exploratory study that preceded and influenced the doctoral data collection.
Jacques, L., & Clark-Wilson, A. (2020). Developing Questions and Prompts: English Primary Teachers’ Learning about Variation through Lesson Study. ICMI Study 25: Teachers of mathematics working and learning in collaborative groups, 348-355. University of Lisbon.
25 March 2021 12.30-14.00
1 April 2021 12.30-14.00
University holiday
Summer term
22 April 2021 12.30-14.00 Work in progress
Flow and its relationship with the mathematics classroom
Sipho Morrison
Using a phenomenological approach, I investigated the multi-dimensional model of the flow phenomenon and its interdependence with the mathematics classroom. Learners of mathematics often have a great enjoyment when carrying out mathematical activities. I contend this experience can be labelled as flow. The flow experience has been described as being in the ‘zone’. Flow refers to the experience of a learner. The learner is totally absorbed in a task to the exclusion of all else with a complete connection and successful outcome. Flow experiences can improve educational experiences for students in the secondary mathematics classroom by heightening enjoyment, intrinsic motivation and creativity. Between 2015 and 2016 I carried out an 18-month longitudinal study with a group of secondary students, anticipating how flow can assist positive relationships with mathematics. I recorded, videoed and questioned students’ experiences of flow in the classroom. I argue first, that from examining how flow occurs in the mathematics classroom, I have constructed an understanding of its appearance to the classroom observer and attended to its perceived benefits. A second contribution of the research is that flow, a quality of experience, positively affects learning in the mathematics classroom, and is a feasible vector for teacher development.
29 April 2021 12.30-14.00
Bidding for EEF funds: reflecting on the process
Jeremy Hodgen
Jeremy Hodgen will discuss the bid that he is preparing for this call by the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) and will reflect on other work he has carried out for the EEF:
https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/about/tenders/review-of-evidence-on-implementation-in-education-call-for-proposals/?utm_source=site&utm_medium=search&utm_campaign=site_search&search_term=implementation%20review
6 May 2021 12.30-14.00 Reading Group - everyone welcome!
Nicola Bretscher
Will lead a discussion of the recent paper by Colin Foster, Tom Francome, Dave Hewitt & Chris Shore in Journal of Curriculum Studies entitled: Principles for the design of a fully-resourced, coherent, research-informed school mathematics curriculum https://doi.org/10.1080/00220272.2021.1902569
Thanks to Cosette for suggesting the paper!
13 May 2021 12.30-14.00 Reading Group - everyone welcome!
We plan to read one or two papers from the ZDM issue (Vol 53, Issue 1, April 2021) on Mathematics Teacher Noticing: Exploring and Expanding the Terrain.
I chose the following paper since, as a systematic review, I thought it might provide a useful overview of research on noticing. Also we haven’t read a systematic review paper at the SiG in my memory, so I thought the type of paper might be interesting too. There were plenty of other interesting papers in the issue too, so apologies if you would have preferred to read another one! from Nicola and thanks to Jennie for suggesting the Special Issue as a focus.
Santagata, R., König, J., Scheiner, T. et al. Mathematics teacher learning to notice: a systematic review of studies of video-based programs. ZDM Mathematics Education 53, 119–134 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11858-020-01216-z
20 May 2021 12.30-14.00 Seminar series - everyone welcome!
Automated assessment of tertiary mathematics at UCL
Ben Davies and Ruth Reynolds
In this talk, we will introduce the automated assessment project from the UCL Department of Mathematics. From AY2020, the department is implementing STACK-based assessment for the majority of modules across the first two years of the undergraduate programme. This raises several concerns about the pedagogic and social implications of such large-scale change, and presents various opportunities for educational research in these areas. We seek feedback on our own research plans to this end, and invite others to propose collaborations based on the multitude of potential data available through this project.
27 May 2021 12.30-14.00 Team meeting
SiG futures: planning for next academic year
Nicola Bretscher, Laurie Jacques & Sinéad Vaughan
We have begun to book presenters for SiG dates in the new academic year. This has raised the question of how and in what mode or blend or combination/hybrid of modes we wish to run the SiG next year. There have been some clear benefits to running online, forced due to the Covid pandemic of course. So we want to use this SiG as an opportunity to review and discuss the pros and cons and possibilities for running sessions next year to support our planning. Thanks in advance for your input and support :-)
3 June 2021 12.30-14.00 Team meeting
An informal meeting over half-term
10 June 2021 12.30-14.00
CTTR seminar: potential for engaging with and helping to shape the work of the centre
Mark Hardman
As part of ongoing discussion within the Centre for Teachers and Teaching Research, Mark Hardman will flesh out the current thinking around its direction, as well as suggest some early ideas about ways that members of the SIG can engage with and be supported by the centre. CTTR has a remit to both develop world-leading research into teacher education and to build capacity in the research conducted by ITE colleagues, so this is an opportunity to help shape the activities of the centre.
17 June 2021 12.30-14.00
The Teaching Maths for Social Justice Network (TMSJN)
Pete Wright
The Teaching Maths for Social Justice Network – a network for teachers of mathematics in all school phases committed to addressing issues of equity and social justice in the classroom – was launched in April 2021. This meeting will provide an opportunity to reflect on the first meeting of the network and to consider/discuss the following questions:
- How much interest is there amongst teachers of mathematics in engaging with issues of equity and social justice in the mathematics classroom?
- What are the current opportunities and constraints for doing so?
- How might they do this and what support might they need from teacher educators and researchers?
- To what extent can/should teachers of mathematics become activists for social change?
24 June 2021 12.30-14.00 Work in Progress
Mathematical Futures: analysis of the Call for Views
Jennie Golding & Teresa Smart
In Nov/Dec 2020 we developed a SIG response to the Royal Society ‘Call for Views’ on the future of mathematics and mathematics education. A small number of colleagues also made individual responses to the call. The underlying questions of the Mathematical Futures Programme (MFP) are:
- What mathematical competences will be needed for society to thrive in the future?
- How should education systems develop these mathematical competences?
1 July 2021 12.30-14.00 Work in Progress
Pedagogical preferences: Exploring the potential of, and adapting, a 'noticing' task to facilitate a meaningful mathematical experience
Timothy Clark and Laurie Jacques
This session will focus on a mathematical task for KS3 that was shared in an online community as a ‘problem of the week’ which Laurie came across. Curious about its design, Laurie explored the task herself and shared her thoughts with Tim by email. This developed into an informal exchange of ideas about how the task might be ‘reshaped’ in the light of our own pedagogical preferences. We will share the original task and our own thoughts from our email exchange before inviting the SiG attendees to critique the original task and suggested revisions, based on their own pedagogical preferences and imagined contexts.
8 July 2021 12.30-14.00
End of year social. Enjoy your summer! :-)