25th June 2015 room 803
Research students: recruitment, topics and support
18th June 2015 room 803
Informal meeting - discussion inspired your choices of extracts from Simon Singh's 2013 The Simpson's Mathematical Secrets. Please choose a page or two from the book for us to discuss or play with the mathematical ideas.
11 June 2015 room 803
Pete Wright
Teaching mathematics for social justice: translating theories into practice
During this session I will report on a research project which formed the basis of my doctoral studies. The study explored how a commitment towards teaching mathematics for social justice amongst teachers could be translated into related classroom practice. I will recount how a group of teacher researchers set about achieving this through developing, trying out and evaluating a series of teaching ideas and activities. There will be a chance to try out some activities during the session. The study adopted a critical methodological stance, with a research design based on a model of participatory action research, paying careful attention to the trustworthiness of the research findings. The findings demonstrate how the five teacher researchers began to seriously question and rethink previously held views about the nature of mathematics, their own relationship with the subject and notions of mathematical ability. They exhibit a growing belief that the development of students’ mathematical understanding and awareness of social justice issues are inextricably linked, rather than separate objectives. These changes in epistemologies appear to have an impact on teacher researchers’ classroom practice and their students’ dispositions towards learning mathematics. There is evidence that making mathematics more relevant and meaningful leads to raised levels of student engagement, and that focusing on how mathematics can be used to understand real-life issues and to construct an argument for change leads to increased student agency. The collaborative and participative nature of the research group shows how a mutually supportive environment can be created which promotes the self-efficacy of teacher researchers in addressing issues of social justice in their mathematics classrooms. Further information about the research project is available at:
http://maths-socialjustice.weebly.com/
4 June 2015 room 803
Christof Weber, University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland FHNW
Making logarithms accessible—or: dealing with different theories in mathematics education research
Logarithms have a reputation for being difficult and inaccessible. What mathematical interpretations make the concept of logarithms accessible for students - so that they can grasp the concept, experience it as something meaningful and are able to solve mathematical problems? Astonishingly, mathematics education has produced only a few answers. Second, although there are several theoretical approaches to understanding mathematics, only few studies present theory-based proposals of what students should understand about logarithms.
In this talk, I will argue that one reason for the difficulties with logarithms lies within the classic textbook definition “the logarithm of a number is its exponent”. Following the tradition of ‘Stoffdidaktik’, or subject matter didactics, my talk will be based on ‘Grundvorstellungen’, or basic models, a theory that has enjoyed popularity in the German-speaking countries. It will be enriched by the theory of semiotic register of representations and object-process theories in order to develop a number of normative interpretations of logarithms that are aimed at making logarithms accessible to students. In the last part, some implications of the proposed basic models for future research will be discussed.
28 May 2015 room 803
Potential future liaison with UCL Mathematics or Statistics departments
Mathematics education colleagues will speak informally about working towards liaison in the following areas:
1. BScQTS maths: Pete and Jennie
2. Developing app use for teaching undergraduate maths: Nicola and Sinead, with Celia’s support
3. Undergraduate mathematics education and Teach First: Suman and Geoff
4. Postgraduate research student Teaching Assistant preparation and support: Cosette and Melissa
21 May 2015 room 803
Richard Cowan
Number skills in primary school - Individual differences and development
From the beginning of universal schooling, there has been dissatisfaction with the outcomes of primary education. Some children have always made much slower progress in number development than others, but the causes of individual differences remain in dispute. Contrary to public perception, the differences between children in the same class are greater than the differences which exist between schools or different countries. Recent accounts in developmental psychology emphasize the reciprocity which exists among a number of causal factors. For example, cognitive skills can affect mathematical development, but simultaneously, mathematical development can enhance the development of cognition. This considers what needs to be found out to advance our understanding in developmental psychology and improve the basis for educational policy making.
14 May 2015 room 541
Andy Noyes, University of Nottingham
Rethinking the Value of Advanced Mathematics Participation
Dolton and Vignoles’ 1999 econometric analysis of the 1958 National Child Development Study showed that A level mathematics was unique in having a wage premium of 7-10% at age 33, for that sample of the population. In our Nuffield-funded project, Rethinking the Value of Advanced Mathematics Participation, we replicated the original research and then repeated the analysis with the later 1970 British Cohort Study, using Bayesian modelling and multiple imputation techniques. In this session we will present the findings from this analysis. We then discuss how the original research has been taken up by policymakers and what Stephen Ball and Sonia Exley term policy interlockers. Thirdly, we set out how this work package fits into the wider project and present emerging findings from the analysis of linked NPD-HESA data that shows the impact of A level maths on degree outcomes in biology and chemistry.
An additional relevant paper by Celia Hoyles and Joan Ferrini-Mundy on Policy Implications of Developing Mathematics Education Research can be found here.
7 May 2015 room 642
Alexandre Pais, Manchester Met University
What do people do when they do mathematics? An introduction to the disorder of mathematics education
When asked about what people do when they do mathematics, the most obvious answer seems to be given in terms of mathematics itself: seeking out patterns, formulate conjectures, studying shapes and motions, or modelling real life phenomena. Recent developments in mathematics education, however, have been showing how there is more at stake when dealing with mathematics, especially when the place of activity is the teaching and learning of mathematics in schools. Through school mathematics, people also learn to position themselves in a given social hierarchy; they learn the ideological values of science and reason that characterise Modernity; they learn how to be obedient and perform routine exercises; they learn the economic rules for the production and seizure of surplus-value; they learn to delegate responsibility and accountability to technological devices. In this presentation, we will discuss some of the implications of the teaching and learning of mathematics that cannot be explained in terms of mathematics alone. Moreover, we go a bit further, and also ask what do people learn when they actually learn mathematics (beyond routine exercises or dumb word problems). That is, if we could exempt mathematics from all the negative vicissitudes that characterise and often undermine what is considered a good mathematics instruction, what will students be learning? To answer this question we bring into play elements of Lacanian psychoanalysis, in particular the idea that every scientific endeavour is characterised by an ideological attempt to suture the subject. Could it be that mathematics, as the queen of sciences, is the most powerful attempt made by humans to erase themselves from what they do?
30 April 2015 room 802
John Jerrim
Why do East Asian children perform so well in PISA? An investigation of Western-born children of East Asian descent. https://johnjerrim.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/australia_asia_paper.pdf
23 April 2015 room 803
Discussion of reading lead by Jennie Golding.
Jennie will give a brief introduction to the book’s ideas about ‘meta-cognition’ and the application, with examples, of the notion of meta cognition in methods for teaching maths (i.e., as an aspect of maths pedagogy a teacher might choose to employ) with specific reference to e-environments (e.g., on-line learning, dynamic geometry). However, most of the sig will be for discussion. You might want to read the whole book, but if not, pages 43-44 say roughly what metacognition is and why it might be important, (though it’s not very clear); and chapter 4 outlines the evidence base re its use and implications in maths education. Alternatively, for a wider overview, there’s a summary at the end of each chapter and the electronic version appended seems easily navigable. Mevarech, Z. and B. Kramarski (2014), Critical Maths for Innovative Societies: The Role of Metaognitive Pedagogies, OECD Publishing.
available on line at http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/9789264223561-en
19 March 2015 room 784 starting at 1300 (ending 1400)
A Psychology and Human Development Department seminar
Dr James Negen, Department of Psychology, Durham University
Approximate Number System Acuity and the Earliest Math Education
12 March 2015 room 803
discussion of the paper:
'Hating school, loving mathematics: On the ideological function of critique and reform in mathematics education' by Sverker Lundin https://www.dropbox.com/s/wnmsz6ij40z0zg2/Lundin2011HatingSchoolLovingMaths_ESM.pdf?dl=0
5 March 2015 room 784
Ivan Kalaš, LKL visiting Research Fellow and Comenius University Bratislava
Conceptual framework of educational programming in primary education
In my presentation I will try to summarize experience accumulated in our Comenius University group in (a) developing curriculum for computing study programme for primary education, (b) developing content and corresponding pedagogy, and (c) developing software interfaces for young and very young children to facilitate the development of their computational thinking and problem solving skills through programming. My engagement in this field results from two intertwining premises. First, I believe that computational thinking– materialised in educational programming – is a valid and important contribution to general primary and secondary education for all - not because we want to attract young people into university Computer Science programmes, but because it constitutes important part of skills for learning. Secondly, I believe that new pedagogies for computing or computational thinking can be developed that are developmentally appropriate, mediate the potential of programming to education, avoid the danger of focusing on mastering technology itself, and productively contribute to all domains of developmental, including mathematical thinking. I will start by presenting our research and development for children aged 4 to 6, where we are trying to develop learning software interfaces that enable children to apply direct manipulations to control an agent, read and interpret symbolic plans for the future behaviours of that agent, then build such plans by themselves, fill in the missing steps etc. At the primary level (in Slovakia, children aged 6 to 10) we are trying to understand cognitive requirements and difficulties of the programming tasks they are supposed to solve in the phenomenal international contest Bebras (with over 700,000 contestants in 2014 in about 30 countries, including the UK). Finally, I will briefly present the goals and running development within our new LKL, EEF funded, ScratchMaths project, trying to understand how educational programming in years 5 and 6 can contribute to the development of the pupils’ mathematical thinking. Based on these three aforementioned domains I will try to formulate an emerging conceptual framework of educational programming in primary education.
19 February 2015
Eva Jablonka, KCL
Dismantling boredom in mathematics classrooms
In mathematics education research, the notion of ‘boredom’ has been used across social and cultural settings, mostly in attempts to explore relations with interest, enjoyment and achievement; such relations, however, have not been identified. In moving beyond the essentialising of emotions or attitudes towards mathematics salient in studies based on educational psychology, I shall explore how different forms of regulation of conduct and acquisition of curricular content produce different 'boredoms' and its relief in mathematics classrooms. The exploration is based on an analysis of data from mathematics classrooms in Germany, Hong Kong and the United States, where in post-lesson interviews students talked about a range of experiences of 'boredom'. In these interviews, the students looked at a video of the lesson in which they could see themselves as well as the teacher (on a split screen). The students’ experiences of boredom are of particular interest, as they point to stages of transition between types of role involvement, that is, between commitment, explicit rejection or alienation.
12 February 2015 room 654
Initial Teacher Education teams lead by Suman Ghosh and Jennie Golding
On the impacts of ITE reforms on HEIs
In Summer 2014 Sir Andrew Carter was appointed to convene a committee assessing the current state of ITE in this country, available athttps://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/399957/Carter_Review.pdf, together with the Government response to it. Suman was one of those who gave evidence to the committee. The review makes a number of recommendations and highlights in particular the importance of subject knowledge, though it does not really define what is meant by that. It pays very limited attention to specific benefits of teacher preparation elements that are HE-led. Earlier in 2014 UUK produced a paper (attached) analysing the considerable impact of the rapidly-changing ITE landscape on University Departments of Education (UDEs) – but surprisingly, without asking in any depth why such Departments were worth preserving. Jennie has drafted a (non-academic) paper and Appendix (attached) attempting to catalyse discussion of this issue for SATTAG (the Supply and Training of Teachers Advisory Group): there is much more evidence available and not referenced there, about the characteristics and experiences needed by beginner teachers – and by those who mentor them, whether in school or UDE. Carter, UUK and Jennie each make some reference to teachers using research in some way, which relates to the 5 February SIG.
Suman will describe his experiences with the Carter committee and relate those to the report recommendations. Jennie will outline very briefly both the arguments presented in the UUK paper and her own ‘Aunt Sally’ of an analysis of the roles each of schools and universities can play in ITE. Pete will then facilitate a discussion around any or all of the issues raised. It would be helpful if attendees came having read at least some of the relevant documentation.
Please see documents to be discussed in this folder
5 February 2015 room 915
Cosette Crisan and Nicola Bretscher
Presentation of the findings of the BERA and RSA inquiry into Teachers' views: Perspectives on Research Engagement.
We will present the key findings of the final report of the BERA-RSA Inquiry into the role of research in teacher education. In particular, we will focus on the report’s findings on the role of research in ITE/CPD and teacher perspectives on research engagement as a starting point for a discussion on the following themes:
- How do we use research to inform our current ITE/CPD programmes in maths?
- What research could we do within and across ITE/CPD programmes – given our expertise?
- How do we involve teachers in our own research?
22 January 2015 room 836
Caroline Hilton and Jennie Henley
Teaching mathematics through music or music through mathematics? Introducing the European Music Portfolio - Maths: Sounding Ways into Mathematics.
Having an overview of mathematics curricula across Europe provides a very useful way of seeing where music can be pivotal for effective mathematics teaching and learning. In very general terms, as has been seen, the context in which mathematics is taught is key to fostering motivation, interest and learning. Music, then, can provide such a context, given that teachers are supported to have both the mathematical knowledge and the musical knowledge, to best exploit this opportunity. The understanding of mathematical concepts and principles, which is key to all the mathematics curricula, involves an understanding that mathematics, at all levels, is usually concerned with an understanding of patterns and relationships. This fits very well within the context of music and, at a very basic level, is the reason that music is often used to support the rote learning of number facts. However, if music is used in conjunction with mathematics, more fundamental relationships can be developed within, for example, the contexts of geometry, number and algebra.
In reviewing the curricula for music and mathematics across Europe, we have tried to consider the big picture and look for the common strands where the two subjects overlap. Within the context of this big picture, we can begin to consider how this can be developed to ensure a true integration of the teaching of music and mathematics, where by teaching the subjects as a whole, the understanding of each will be enhanced.
15 January 2015 room 901
Alison Clark-Wilson and colleagues
A world-class teaching profession – Developing a response to the government consultation
On 9 Dec 2014 the government published a consultation document ‘ A world class teaching profession’, which proposes: support for a new ‘College of Teaching’; funding for evidence-based professional development; an online platform for evidence-based practice; and new standards for teachers' professional development. The closing date for the consultation is 3 February 2015. (see https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/developing-the-teaching-profession-to-a-world-class-standard ). We will use this SIG meeting to discuss the consultation document, these questions (and others) in order to draft a response to the consultation from our mathematics education SIG. this draft will then be developed further by a shared DropBox version (during 22 Jan – 3 Feb) to arrive at our final response, which I will submit before the deadline.
11 December 2014 room 915
Jennie Golding
Capacity for change: the case of GCSE mathematics.
What (individual and group) characteristics do teachers draw on when attempting deep change? And how does policy serve to support or undermine that? Jennie will present some key findings and proposals from her thesis study, for discussion. The study employed a constructivist grounded approach and a variety of theoretical lenses to explore two mathematics departments well-placed and keen to enact GCSE 2010 in a principled way, though in the event only one of those succeeded in doing so within the three years of the study. Data suggests that in addition to a range of (comparatively well-researched) deep knowledge for teaching, ‘successful’ change drew differentially on social and affective characteristics that are typically under-valued in initial and continuing teacher development. These served to mediate the profile of policy roles adopted by teachers within a department, and in particular a range of leadership-related roles. Throughout such enaction, redundancy and diversity of the range of such teacher ‘capacity’within a ‘successful’ department appeared to equip the department to operate as more than the sum of its parts. However, common and relatively small impediments appeared to undermine previously-available capacity in the other department, resulting in a ‘minimal-compliance’ enaction. The thesis develops a high-level model of teacher capacity that builds on Winch (2010), and refines and extends Ball et al’s (2011) policy player typology. Outcomes have implications for teacher development, but also for the framing of policy: these may go beyond secondary mathematics education.
4 December 2014 room 836
Katie Makar, University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia
From making connections to developing classroom culture: Research on teachers' developing expertise in teaching mathematics through inquiry
Researchers have long promoted inquiry-based learning as a contrast to transmission-only modes of teaching mathematics. However, the uptake of this approach has been slow and perhaps misunderstood. Approximately 1500 mathematical inquiry lessons were observed or videotaped from 58 teachers of students in Prep (age 4-5, kindergarten) through Grade 7 (age 11-12) over 0-7 years. These data are still being analysed, but a number of preliminary findings are emerging. Quantitative analyses from a sample of these lessons have provided insights into characteristics of teachers¹ pedagogies that evolved over 3 years (based on n = 31 teachers, who remained in the study into the third year or beyond). For example, characteristics such as portraying mathematics as connected showed rapid improvement over their conventional mathematics lessons, while developing a classroom culture of inquiry was more challenging for teachers to improve. Case studies selected from the eight most experienced teachers suggest a set of ³signature practices² of mathematical inquiry. This talk will provide an overview of the methodologies, initial outcomes and potential implications of 7 years of research on teachers¹ adopting and adapting mathematical inquiry.
27 November 2014 room PC lab 2
Eirini Geraniou, Christian Bokhove and Manolis Mavrikis
An update of the work of the MCSquared European project www.mc2-project.eu
A short literature review on Creative Mathematical Thinking (CMT) provided a context about the approach the project is taking. The team welcomes your opinion or other related literature on the subject of course. During the SIG meeting we will explore the project technology and evaluate some of the books with respect to their CMT potential.
20 November 2014 room 822
Alison Clark-Wilson and Celia Hoyles
Researching teachers' epistemological development as they begin to use dynamic mathematical technology - developing a methodology.
We'll be sharing our outline methodology for a new funded research project and will invite the SIG to engage in a critical discussion to support its development, pls see papers linked.
23 October 2014 room 901
Xinrong Yang, Southwest University, China
How Chinese Mathematics Teachers Learn to Teach Mathematics: An Insider’s Perspective
I shall talk about how Chinese mathematics teachers are trained at universities and what kind of professional activities are provided at schools to support their professional development.
16 October 2014 room 803
Mary Stevenson, Liverpool Hope University
‘Understanding mathematics in depth’: conceptions of secondary mathematics teachers on two subject knowledge enhancement courses in England
The need for mathematics teachers to have a deep understanding of the subject, and what this ‘understanding mathematics in depth’ might mean, are issues of current debate with implications for teacher preparation courses. In this paper I focus on the voices of two groups of novice mathematics teachers: (1) pre-service teachers, (2) non-specialist serving teachers , most of whom had completed a subject knowledge enhancement course (SKE). Analysis of data revealed that for pre-service teachers, growth in knowledge was located mostly within pedagogical content knowledge (PCK), whilst for serving teachers it was mostly in subject matter knowledge (SMK). Understanding mathematics in depth (UMID) was articulated as ‘knowing why’ and ‘being able to communicate’, and development of UMID as was seen as taking place through investigation of athematical problems, and spending time working on mathematics. Additionally, when analysing themes privileged in the discourse of the teachers, 5 new key themes emerged, which offer important insights for policy and practice in teacher preparation.
9 October 2014 room 803
Luciano Rila, UCL, and Cathy Smith, with colleagues from the FMSP
On the Further Maths Support Programme and how to extend young mathematicians.
Luciano is an area co-ordinator for the Further Maths Support Programme (FMSP) based at UCL. Cathy Smith and Jennie Golding are working on IOE research projects commissioned by FMSP. For this SIG Luciano will discuss what he does for FMSP in liaising with London schools and the support and enrichment they can offer for teachers and students. He will also describe his outreach work for the UCL Mathematics department that promotes mathematics as an undergraduate degree. Cathy and Jennie will introduce the four small research projects they are setting up in relation to girls’ participation, school case studies and teaching A-level in early career.
2 October 2014 library PC Lab 1
Marcelo Batarce, State University of Mato Grosso do Sul
Between Brazil and UK, searching for fundamental questions: memories and reflections on mathematics education
As an Academic from Brazil leaving for study, I would like to take the opportunity given by this presentation to discuss present reflections which have occupied my mind, more often, since I arrived in London last March. However, I have also selected some memories which may help tracing back the roots of them. Therefore, rather than presenting an specific project or the development or the findings of an specific research, my presentation should follow much more the format of an essay filled in with bits of personal memories. Though, I would like to understand the description provided by it as a description of very activity of researching. The content of my talk, as I perceive it, fluctuates on three fields which interweave each other within the presentation: 1 - the meaning of researching or being a researcher; 2 - personal memories of my career and 3 - presenting my recent incursion on postcolonial studies.
11 September 2014 room 826
Round table discussion on planning the Initial Teacher Education conference June 2015
Richard Cowley, Pete Wright and colleagues
4 Sept 2014 room 803
Team response to the new A level proposals
The new proposed content for maths and further maths has been published – deadline for responses to the consultation is 19 September 2014 https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/gcse-and-a-level-reform
Research students: recruitment, topics and support
18th June 2015 room 803
Informal meeting - discussion inspired your choices of extracts from Simon Singh's 2013 The Simpson's Mathematical Secrets. Please choose a page or two from the book for us to discuss or play with the mathematical ideas.
11 June 2015 room 803
Pete Wright
Teaching mathematics for social justice: translating theories into practice
During this session I will report on a research project which formed the basis of my doctoral studies. The study explored how a commitment towards teaching mathematics for social justice amongst teachers could be translated into related classroom practice. I will recount how a group of teacher researchers set about achieving this through developing, trying out and evaluating a series of teaching ideas and activities. There will be a chance to try out some activities during the session. The study adopted a critical methodological stance, with a research design based on a model of participatory action research, paying careful attention to the trustworthiness of the research findings. The findings demonstrate how the five teacher researchers began to seriously question and rethink previously held views about the nature of mathematics, their own relationship with the subject and notions of mathematical ability. They exhibit a growing belief that the development of students’ mathematical understanding and awareness of social justice issues are inextricably linked, rather than separate objectives. These changes in epistemologies appear to have an impact on teacher researchers’ classroom practice and their students’ dispositions towards learning mathematics. There is evidence that making mathematics more relevant and meaningful leads to raised levels of student engagement, and that focusing on how mathematics can be used to understand real-life issues and to construct an argument for change leads to increased student agency. The collaborative and participative nature of the research group shows how a mutually supportive environment can be created which promotes the self-efficacy of teacher researchers in addressing issues of social justice in their mathematics classrooms. Further information about the research project is available at:
http://maths-socialjustice.weebly.com/
4 June 2015 room 803
Christof Weber, University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland FHNW
Making logarithms accessible—or: dealing with different theories in mathematics education research
Logarithms have a reputation for being difficult and inaccessible. What mathematical interpretations make the concept of logarithms accessible for students - so that they can grasp the concept, experience it as something meaningful and are able to solve mathematical problems? Astonishingly, mathematics education has produced only a few answers. Second, although there are several theoretical approaches to understanding mathematics, only few studies present theory-based proposals of what students should understand about logarithms.
In this talk, I will argue that one reason for the difficulties with logarithms lies within the classic textbook definition “the logarithm of a number is its exponent”. Following the tradition of ‘Stoffdidaktik’, or subject matter didactics, my talk will be based on ‘Grundvorstellungen’, or basic models, a theory that has enjoyed popularity in the German-speaking countries. It will be enriched by the theory of semiotic register of representations and object-process theories in order to develop a number of normative interpretations of logarithms that are aimed at making logarithms accessible to students. In the last part, some implications of the proposed basic models for future research will be discussed.
28 May 2015 room 803
Potential future liaison with UCL Mathematics or Statistics departments
Mathematics education colleagues will speak informally about working towards liaison in the following areas:
1. BScQTS maths: Pete and Jennie
2. Developing app use for teaching undergraduate maths: Nicola and Sinead, with Celia’s support
3. Undergraduate mathematics education and Teach First: Suman and Geoff
4. Postgraduate research student Teaching Assistant preparation and support: Cosette and Melissa
21 May 2015 room 803
Richard Cowan
Number skills in primary school - Individual differences and development
From the beginning of universal schooling, there has been dissatisfaction with the outcomes of primary education. Some children have always made much slower progress in number development than others, but the causes of individual differences remain in dispute. Contrary to public perception, the differences between children in the same class are greater than the differences which exist between schools or different countries. Recent accounts in developmental psychology emphasize the reciprocity which exists among a number of causal factors. For example, cognitive skills can affect mathematical development, but simultaneously, mathematical development can enhance the development of cognition. This considers what needs to be found out to advance our understanding in developmental psychology and improve the basis for educational policy making.
14 May 2015 room 541
Andy Noyes, University of Nottingham
Rethinking the Value of Advanced Mathematics Participation
Dolton and Vignoles’ 1999 econometric analysis of the 1958 National Child Development Study showed that A level mathematics was unique in having a wage premium of 7-10% at age 33, for that sample of the population. In our Nuffield-funded project, Rethinking the Value of Advanced Mathematics Participation, we replicated the original research and then repeated the analysis with the later 1970 British Cohort Study, using Bayesian modelling and multiple imputation techniques. In this session we will present the findings from this analysis. We then discuss how the original research has been taken up by policymakers and what Stephen Ball and Sonia Exley term policy interlockers. Thirdly, we set out how this work package fits into the wider project and present emerging findings from the analysis of linked NPD-HESA data that shows the impact of A level maths on degree outcomes in biology and chemistry.
An additional relevant paper by Celia Hoyles and Joan Ferrini-Mundy on Policy Implications of Developing Mathematics Education Research can be found here.
7 May 2015 room 642
Alexandre Pais, Manchester Met University
What do people do when they do mathematics? An introduction to the disorder of mathematics education
When asked about what people do when they do mathematics, the most obvious answer seems to be given in terms of mathematics itself: seeking out patterns, formulate conjectures, studying shapes and motions, or modelling real life phenomena. Recent developments in mathematics education, however, have been showing how there is more at stake when dealing with mathematics, especially when the place of activity is the teaching and learning of mathematics in schools. Through school mathematics, people also learn to position themselves in a given social hierarchy; they learn the ideological values of science and reason that characterise Modernity; they learn how to be obedient and perform routine exercises; they learn the economic rules for the production and seizure of surplus-value; they learn to delegate responsibility and accountability to technological devices. In this presentation, we will discuss some of the implications of the teaching and learning of mathematics that cannot be explained in terms of mathematics alone. Moreover, we go a bit further, and also ask what do people learn when they actually learn mathematics (beyond routine exercises or dumb word problems). That is, if we could exempt mathematics from all the negative vicissitudes that characterise and often undermine what is considered a good mathematics instruction, what will students be learning? To answer this question we bring into play elements of Lacanian psychoanalysis, in particular the idea that every scientific endeavour is characterised by an ideological attempt to suture the subject. Could it be that mathematics, as the queen of sciences, is the most powerful attempt made by humans to erase themselves from what they do?
30 April 2015 room 802
John Jerrim
Why do East Asian children perform so well in PISA? An investigation of Western-born children of East Asian descent. https://johnjerrim.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/australia_asia_paper.pdf
23 April 2015 room 803
Discussion of reading lead by Jennie Golding.
Jennie will give a brief introduction to the book’s ideas about ‘meta-cognition’ and the application, with examples, of the notion of meta cognition in methods for teaching maths (i.e., as an aspect of maths pedagogy a teacher might choose to employ) with specific reference to e-environments (e.g., on-line learning, dynamic geometry). However, most of the sig will be for discussion. You might want to read the whole book, but if not, pages 43-44 say roughly what metacognition is and why it might be important, (though it’s not very clear); and chapter 4 outlines the evidence base re its use and implications in maths education. Alternatively, for a wider overview, there’s a summary at the end of each chapter and the electronic version appended seems easily navigable. Mevarech, Z. and B. Kramarski (2014), Critical Maths for Innovative Societies: The Role of Metaognitive Pedagogies, OECD Publishing.
available on line at http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/9789264223561-en
19 March 2015 room 784 starting at 1300 (ending 1400)
A Psychology and Human Development Department seminar
Dr James Negen, Department of Psychology, Durham University
Approximate Number System Acuity and the Earliest Math Education
12 March 2015 room 803
discussion of the paper:
'Hating school, loving mathematics: On the ideological function of critique and reform in mathematics education' by Sverker Lundin https://www.dropbox.com/s/wnmsz6ij40z0zg2/Lundin2011HatingSchoolLovingMaths_ESM.pdf?dl=0
5 March 2015 room 784
Ivan Kalaš, LKL visiting Research Fellow and Comenius University Bratislava
Conceptual framework of educational programming in primary education
In my presentation I will try to summarize experience accumulated in our Comenius University group in (a) developing curriculum for computing study programme for primary education, (b) developing content and corresponding pedagogy, and (c) developing software interfaces for young and very young children to facilitate the development of their computational thinking and problem solving skills through programming. My engagement in this field results from two intertwining premises. First, I believe that computational thinking– materialised in educational programming – is a valid and important contribution to general primary and secondary education for all - not because we want to attract young people into university Computer Science programmes, but because it constitutes important part of skills for learning. Secondly, I believe that new pedagogies for computing or computational thinking can be developed that are developmentally appropriate, mediate the potential of programming to education, avoid the danger of focusing on mastering technology itself, and productively contribute to all domains of developmental, including mathematical thinking. I will start by presenting our research and development for children aged 4 to 6, where we are trying to develop learning software interfaces that enable children to apply direct manipulations to control an agent, read and interpret symbolic plans for the future behaviours of that agent, then build such plans by themselves, fill in the missing steps etc. At the primary level (in Slovakia, children aged 6 to 10) we are trying to understand cognitive requirements and difficulties of the programming tasks they are supposed to solve in the phenomenal international contest Bebras (with over 700,000 contestants in 2014 in about 30 countries, including the UK). Finally, I will briefly present the goals and running development within our new LKL, EEF funded, ScratchMaths project, trying to understand how educational programming in years 5 and 6 can contribute to the development of the pupils’ mathematical thinking. Based on these three aforementioned domains I will try to formulate an emerging conceptual framework of educational programming in primary education.
19 February 2015
Eva Jablonka, KCL
Dismantling boredom in mathematics classrooms
In mathematics education research, the notion of ‘boredom’ has been used across social and cultural settings, mostly in attempts to explore relations with interest, enjoyment and achievement; such relations, however, have not been identified. In moving beyond the essentialising of emotions or attitudes towards mathematics salient in studies based on educational psychology, I shall explore how different forms of regulation of conduct and acquisition of curricular content produce different 'boredoms' and its relief in mathematics classrooms. The exploration is based on an analysis of data from mathematics classrooms in Germany, Hong Kong and the United States, where in post-lesson interviews students talked about a range of experiences of 'boredom'. In these interviews, the students looked at a video of the lesson in which they could see themselves as well as the teacher (on a split screen). The students’ experiences of boredom are of particular interest, as they point to stages of transition between types of role involvement, that is, between commitment, explicit rejection or alienation.
12 February 2015 room 654
Initial Teacher Education teams lead by Suman Ghosh and Jennie Golding
On the impacts of ITE reforms on HEIs
In Summer 2014 Sir Andrew Carter was appointed to convene a committee assessing the current state of ITE in this country, available athttps://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/399957/Carter_Review.pdf, together with the Government response to it. Suman was one of those who gave evidence to the committee. The review makes a number of recommendations and highlights in particular the importance of subject knowledge, though it does not really define what is meant by that. It pays very limited attention to specific benefits of teacher preparation elements that are HE-led. Earlier in 2014 UUK produced a paper (attached) analysing the considerable impact of the rapidly-changing ITE landscape on University Departments of Education (UDEs) – but surprisingly, without asking in any depth why such Departments were worth preserving. Jennie has drafted a (non-academic) paper and Appendix (attached) attempting to catalyse discussion of this issue for SATTAG (the Supply and Training of Teachers Advisory Group): there is much more evidence available and not referenced there, about the characteristics and experiences needed by beginner teachers – and by those who mentor them, whether in school or UDE. Carter, UUK and Jennie each make some reference to teachers using research in some way, which relates to the 5 February SIG.
Suman will describe his experiences with the Carter committee and relate those to the report recommendations. Jennie will outline very briefly both the arguments presented in the UUK paper and her own ‘Aunt Sally’ of an analysis of the roles each of schools and universities can play in ITE. Pete will then facilitate a discussion around any or all of the issues raised. It would be helpful if attendees came having read at least some of the relevant documentation.
Please see documents to be discussed in this folder
5 February 2015 room 915
Cosette Crisan and Nicola Bretscher
Presentation of the findings of the BERA and RSA inquiry into Teachers' views: Perspectives on Research Engagement.
We will present the key findings of the final report of the BERA-RSA Inquiry into the role of research in teacher education. In particular, we will focus on the report’s findings on the role of research in ITE/CPD and teacher perspectives on research engagement as a starting point for a discussion on the following themes:
- How do we use research to inform our current ITE/CPD programmes in maths?
- What research could we do within and across ITE/CPD programmes – given our expertise?
- How do we involve teachers in our own research?
22 January 2015 room 836
Caroline Hilton and Jennie Henley
Teaching mathematics through music or music through mathematics? Introducing the European Music Portfolio - Maths: Sounding Ways into Mathematics.
Having an overview of mathematics curricula across Europe provides a very useful way of seeing where music can be pivotal for effective mathematics teaching and learning. In very general terms, as has been seen, the context in which mathematics is taught is key to fostering motivation, interest and learning. Music, then, can provide such a context, given that teachers are supported to have both the mathematical knowledge and the musical knowledge, to best exploit this opportunity. The understanding of mathematical concepts and principles, which is key to all the mathematics curricula, involves an understanding that mathematics, at all levels, is usually concerned with an understanding of patterns and relationships. This fits very well within the context of music and, at a very basic level, is the reason that music is often used to support the rote learning of number facts. However, if music is used in conjunction with mathematics, more fundamental relationships can be developed within, for example, the contexts of geometry, number and algebra.
In reviewing the curricula for music and mathematics across Europe, we have tried to consider the big picture and look for the common strands where the two subjects overlap. Within the context of this big picture, we can begin to consider how this can be developed to ensure a true integration of the teaching of music and mathematics, where by teaching the subjects as a whole, the understanding of each will be enhanced.
15 January 2015 room 901
Alison Clark-Wilson and colleagues
A world-class teaching profession – Developing a response to the government consultation
On 9 Dec 2014 the government published a consultation document ‘ A world class teaching profession’, which proposes: support for a new ‘College of Teaching’; funding for evidence-based professional development; an online platform for evidence-based practice; and new standards for teachers' professional development. The closing date for the consultation is 3 February 2015. (see https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/developing-the-teaching-profession-to-a-world-class-standard ). We will use this SIG meeting to discuss the consultation document, these questions (and others) in order to draft a response to the consultation from our mathematics education SIG. this draft will then be developed further by a shared DropBox version (during 22 Jan – 3 Feb) to arrive at our final response, which I will submit before the deadline.
11 December 2014 room 915
Jennie Golding
Capacity for change: the case of GCSE mathematics.
What (individual and group) characteristics do teachers draw on when attempting deep change? And how does policy serve to support or undermine that? Jennie will present some key findings and proposals from her thesis study, for discussion. The study employed a constructivist grounded approach and a variety of theoretical lenses to explore two mathematics departments well-placed and keen to enact GCSE 2010 in a principled way, though in the event only one of those succeeded in doing so within the three years of the study. Data suggests that in addition to a range of (comparatively well-researched) deep knowledge for teaching, ‘successful’ change drew differentially on social and affective characteristics that are typically under-valued in initial and continuing teacher development. These served to mediate the profile of policy roles adopted by teachers within a department, and in particular a range of leadership-related roles. Throughout such enaction, redundancy and diversity of the range of such teacher ‘capacity’within a ‘successful’ department appeared to equip the department to operate as more than the sum of its parts. However, common and relatively small impediments appeared to undermine previously-available capacity in the other department, resulting in a ‘minimal-compliance’ enaction. The thesis develops a high-level model of teacher capacity that builds on Winch (2010), and refines and extends Ball et al’s (2011) policy player typology. Outcomes have implications for teacher development, but also for the framing of policy: these may go beyond secondary mathematics education.
4 December 2014 room 836
Katie Makar, University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia
From making connections to developing classroom culture: Research on teachers' developing expertise in teaching mathematics through inquiry
Researchers have long promoted inquiry-based learning as a contrast to transmission-only modes of teaching mathematics. However, the uptake of this approach has been slow and perhaps misunderstood. Approximately 1500 mathematical inquiry lessons were observed or videotaped from 58 teachers of students in Prep (age 4-5, kindergarten) through Grade 7 (age 11-12) over 0-7 years. These data are still being analysed, but a number of preliminary findings are emerging. Quantitative analyses from a sample of these lessons have provided insights into characteristics of teachers¹ pedagogies that evolved over 3 years (based on n = 31 teachers, who remained in the study into the third year or beyond). For example, characteristics such as portraying mathematics as connected showed rapid improvement over their conventional mathematics lessons, while developing a classroom culture of inquiry was more challenging for teachers to improve. Case studies selected from the eight most experienced teachers suggest a set of ³signature practices² of mathematical inquiry. This talk will provide an overview of the methodologies, initial outcomes and potential implications of 7 years of research on teachers¹ adopting and adapting mathematical inquiry.
27 November 2014 room PC lab 2
Eirini Geraniou, Christian Bokhove and Manolis Mavrikis
An update of the work of the MCSquared European project www.mc2-project.eu
A short literature review on Creative Mathematical Thinking (CMT) provided a context about the approach the project is taking. The team welcomes your opinion or other related literature on the subject of course. During the SIG meeting we will explore the project technology and evaluate some of the books with respect to their CMT potential.
20 November 2014 room 822
Alison Clark-Wilson and Celia Hoyles
Researching teachers' epistemological development as they begin to use dynamic mathematical technology - developing a methodology.
We'll be sharing our outline methodology for a new funded research project and will invite the SIG to engage in a critical discussion to support its development, pls see papers linked.
23 October 2014 room 901
Xinrong Yang, Southwest University, China
How Chinese Mathematics Teachers Learn to Teach Mathematics: An Insider’s Perspective
I shall talk about how Chinese mathematics teachers are trained at universities and what kind of professional activities are provided at schools to support their professional development.
16 October 2014 room 803
Mary Stevenson, Liverpool Hope University
‘Understanding mathematics in depth’: conceptions of secondary mathematics teachers on two subject knowledge enhancement courses in England
The need for mathematics teachers to have a deep understanding of the subject, and what this ‘understanding mathematics in depth’ might mean, are issues of current debate with implications for teacher preparation courses. In this paper I focus on the voices of two groups of novice mathematics teachers: (1) pre-service teachers, (2) non-specialist serving teachers , most of whom had completed a subject knowledge enhancement course (SKE). Analysis of data revealed that for pre-service teachers, growth in knowledge was located mostly within pedagogical content knowledge (PCK), whilst for serving teachers it was mostly in subject matter knowledge (SMK). Understanding mathematics in depth (UMID) was articulated as ‘knowing why’ and ‘being able to communicate’, and development of UMID as was seen as taking place through investigation of athematical problems, and spending time working on mathematics. Additionally, when analysing themes privileged in the discourse of the teachers, 5 new key themes emerged, which offer important insights for policy and practice in teacher preparation.
9 October 2014 room 803
Luciano Rila, UCL, and Cathy Smith, with colleagues from the FMSP
On the Further Maths Support Programme and how to extend young mathematicians.
Luciano is an area co-ordinator for the Further Maths Support Programme (FMSP) based at UCL. Cathy Smith and Jennie Golding are working on IOE research projects commissioned by FMSP. For this SIG Luciano will discuss what he does for FMSP in liaising with London schools and the support and enrichment they can offer for teachers and students. He will also describe his outreach work for the UCL Mathematics department that promotes mathematics as an undergraduate degree. Cathy and Jennie will introduce the four small research projects they are setting up in relation to girls’ participation, school case studies and teaching A-level in early career.
2 October 2014 library PC Lab 1
Marcelo Batarce, State University of Mato Grosso do Sul
Between Brazil and UK, searching for fundamental questions: memories and reflections on mathematics education
As an Academic from Brazil leaving for study, I would like to take the opportunity given by this presentation to discuss present reflections which have occupied my mind, more often, since I arrived in London last March. However, I have also selected some memories which may help tracing back the roots of them. Therefore, rather than presenting an specific project or the development or the findings of an specific research, my presentation should follow much more the format of an essay filled in with bits of personal memories. Though, I would like to understand the description provided by it as a description of very activity of researching. The content of my talk, as I perceive it, fluctuates on three fields which interweave each other within the presentation: 1 - the meaning of researching or being a researcher; 2 - personal memories of my career and 3 - presenting my recent incursion on postcolonial studies.
11 September 2014 room 826
Round table discussion on planning the Initial Teacher Education conference June 2015
Richard Cowley, Pete Wright and colleagues
4 Sept 2014 room 803
Team response to the new A level proposals
The new proposed content for maths and further maths has been published – deadline for responses to the consultation is 19 September 2014 https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/gcse-and-a-level-reform