seminars and meetings in 2019-20
**************************** Coronavirus update *************************
The SIG will continue online via Microsoft Teams. If you wish to attend a 'Seminar Series' event please email [email protected] to request an invitation to the online meeting.
Summer Term
23 April 2020 12.30-14.00 Team meeting
Microsoft Teams online meeting
Follow-up and continuation of the Research Group discussion.
Reminder: the forgotten 30% in maths classes. What perspectives do we have? What gaps are there? Where next? Please (do your best to) read the following two documents as a starting point for discussion:
- Hargreaves et al.'s (2019) 'I got rejected' paper, click here to link to the paper
- ASCL (2019) The Forgotten Third, available by clicking here.
30 April 2020 12.30-14.00 Team meeting
Microsoft Teams online meeting
Please select your favourite paper on mathematics education, be ready to share a brief outline and explain why it’s influenced you. We know that everyone is really busy at the moment, so it should be a paper that you know very well and so it shouldn’t take more than 5-10 mins to prepare. Therefore identify something that you like and know well enough to talk off the cuff about. Ideally, it should be something that will be new to some of the group and encapsulates something about your research interests.
7 May 2020 12.30-14.00 Team meeting
Jennie Golding & Helen Thouless
Microsoft Teams online meeting
Reading Group—Metacognition
Discussion of 2 papers from the August 2019 volume of ZDM.
Ader, E. (2019). What would you demand beyond mathematics? Teachers’ promotion of students’ self-regulated learning and metacognition. ZDM, 51(4), 613-624.
Hacker, D., Kiuhara, S., & Levin, J. (2019). A metacognitive intervention for teaching fractions to students with or at-risk for learning disabilities in mathematics, ZDM, 51(4), 601-612.
14 May 2020 12.30-14.00 Team meeting
Jeremy Hodgen, Nick McIvor, & Helen Thouless
Microsoft Teams online meeting
We have each selected our favourite paper on mathematics education, which we will share with a brief outline and explain why it’s influenced us.
21 May 2020 12.30-14.00 Team meeting
Jeremy Hodgen
Microsoft Teams online meeting
Discussion of the ways we approach ITE in mathematics across the different programmes within our group.
28 May 2020 12.30-14.00 Informal team meeting
Microsoft Teams online meeting
Half term - so no formal SiG meeting but people may wish to catch up informally
4 June 2020 12.30-14.00 Seminar Series - everyone welcome!
Matt Homer & Rachel Mathieson
Microsoft Teams online meeting
Can Core Maths solve the post-16 maths problem? Findings of a three-year research project
Core Maths, a set of post-16 AS-sized qualifications first taught in 2014, is intended to increase post-16 maths participation in England from its low rate. This is seen by government as a major priority, with poor maths skills hindering economic competitiveness, impacting on higher education and employment, and undermining the ability of citizens to participate fully in a data-rich, democratic society.
In this seminar, we report on the findings of three-year, mixed-methods, longitudinal study on Core Maths funded by the Nuffield Foundation looking at the challenges and successes this new qualification has faced over the first few years of its existence.
We find that, whilst uptake has been slower than policy-makers might have hoped (current entry numbers around 10K), students and teachers have found Core Maths useful, motivating and supportive of other subjects (e.g. Biology, Geography, Business Studies). The importance of signalling the value of maths, and Core Maths in particular, by government, employers and HE is highlighted as crucial to the long-term success of this important curriculum innovation.
11 June 2020 12.30-14.00 Team meeting
Microsoft Teams online meeting
Follow-up and continuation of the Research Group discussion: comparing and contrasting ideas generated by discussion on 23rd April.
18 June 2020 12.30-14.00 Team meeting
Microsoft Teams online meeting
Research Group discussion & Catch Up
A follow-up of the Research Group discussion and some catch up.
25 June 2020 12.30-14.00 Team meeting
Jennie Golding
Microsoft Teams online meeting
Trials and innovations: What should we be learning from current TIMSS and PISA assessments?
TIMSS 2019 assessments for years 5 and 9 are currently being analysed for national and international findings; PISA 2021 for 15-year-olds, with a mathematics focus, has been piloted. The assessments will include a ‘transition study’ that compares on-paper responses with online ones, and the mathematics items have been developed in novel ways. These international performance assessments are highly influential on education policy. I’ll present a (very brief) overview of the scope of, and my involvement in, each. We’ll engage with some new-style PISA mathematics examples, and discuss what implications for learning there might be for mathematics curriculum or teacher development.
2 July 2020 12.30-14.00 Seminar Series - everyone welcome!
Yan Ping Xin and Signe Kastberg
Microsoft Teams online meeting
Conceptual Model-based Math InterventionIntegrating best practice from mathematics education and special education through collaborative work including scholars from both fields as well as computer technology, we (Purdue University team) have created a web-based Conceptual Model-based Math Intervention Tutor (COMMIT) program. The goal of the COMMIT program is to build up mathematics reasoning and problem-solving ability of elementary students with learning difficulties in mathematics (LDM). Rather than focus on superficial story features of the word problem, the COMMIT program emphasizes mathematical model-based problem-solving that is built on nurturing fundamental mathematical ideas that enable students with LDM to make sense of mathematical models at the symbolic level. Model-based learning is one of the foci of the Common Core mathematical practices (Common Core State Standards Initiative, 2012). Another feature of the COMMIT program is the application of linguistic scaffolding. Through innovative creation and application of “word problem story grammar” (Xin, Wiles, & Lin, 2008), this linguistic scaffolding helps students grasp the key elements that make up the mathematical model for generalized problem-solving. COMMIT can be used as part of the core curriculum or as a supplemental program to address today’s challenging mathematics curriculum standards and diverse student populations in inclusive classrooms.
9 July 2020 12.30-14.00 Team meeting
Jeremy Hodgen
Microsoft Teams online meeting
Workload discussion & End of academic year celebration!
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Spring Term
9 January 2020 12.30-14.00 Team meeting
Room 944
16 January 2020 12.30-14.00 Work in progress meeting
Cosette Crisan ; Laurie Jacques
Room 537
This week's SIG will be shared equally between two presentations as follows:
Cosette Crisan, Problematising the School Maths Folklore: Drawing Student Teachers’ attention to a lack of attention
Cosette will talk about the use of acronyms, analogies, mnemonics, metaphors in school mathematics - prior and during the session, she invites you to share some of these here: www.menti.com using the code 59 01 75.
Laurie Jacques, Assessing the quality of understanding of additive relations in Y2: Methodology and findings
Last year Laurie conducted a small-scale qualitative study for Mathematics Mastery that sought to compare the quality of learning of additive relations in Y2 in Mathematic Mastery partner school and non-partner schools. This study conducted a small scale literature review of ‘deep learning’ of mathematics to come up with a “lexicon for deep mathematical learning” (LDML). The LDML was then used as an assessment framework to determine the quality of some Y2 pupils’ understanding of 3 aspects of additive relations: combining, augmenting and comparing. Assessment of the quality of learning was made using ‘comparative judgement’ with high levels of reliability. The findings revealed some useful considerations for recognising features of the depth of understanding that Y2 pupils might demonstrate in their knowledge of additive relations. Laurie will share the methodology and qualitative outcomes of the study.
23 January 2020 12.30-14.00 TBC
Room C3.13
30 January 2020 12.30-14.00 Work in progress meeting
Nicola Bretscher
Room 537
Relationships between mathematics pedagogy and teachers’ integration of ICT into classroom practice
I have just received (Jan 20th) reviewer feedback on a paper submitted to Research in Mathematics Education with the title above. I would like to share the paper and reviewer feedback with the group, presenting my initial responses. I am looking for constructive thoughts about how to take the paper forward in response to the reviewer feedback. Any support would be much appreciated :-) Paper and reviewer feedback will be circulated a week prior to the meeting.
6 February 2020 12.30-14.00 Team meeting
Room C3.13
Research Group discussion. The forgotten 30% in maths classes. What perspectives do we have? What gaps are there? Where next? Please (do your best to) read the following two documents as a starting point for discussion:
- Hargreaves et al.'s (2019) 'I got rejected' paper, click here to link to the paper
- ASCL (2019) The Forgotten Third, available by clicking here.
13 February 2020 12.30-14.00 Team meeting
Jeremy Hodgen
Room C3.13
Sharing our approaches to teaching maths in ITE and PGT programs.
20 February 2019 12.30-14.00
Room 537
Informal meeting. Half term.
27 February 2020 12.30-14.00 Seminar Series - everyone welcome!
Laura Outhwaite
Bentham House: Hong Kong Alumni Room
Understanding educational maths apps for young children
An emerging trend aiming to benefit young children’s mathematical learning experiences is the use of educational maths applications (apps) delivered on touch-screen tablet devices (e.g. iPads) in school and at home (DfE, 2019). Statistics show over 70% of children have access to tablet devices (Ofcom, 2017) with parents of pre-school aged children more likely to download educational apps (Chaudron, 2015) and 41% of teachers report using maths apps as supplementary teaching tools in early primary school years (Vega & Robb, 2019). However, alongside this growing popularity and prevalence of maths apps, there is also increasing concern surrounding children’s screen time and its impact on their learning and development (American Academy of Paediatrics, 2016). There are also few systematic and evidence-based recommendations specific to maths apps, which makes deciding if and which apps provide a quality learning experience a significant challenge to teachers, parents and policy makers. In addressing some of these challenges, this talk will present some of the recent evidence examining the impacts of different maths apps with young children in different educational contexts (e.g. Outhwaite et al., 2018; Schenke et al., 2020), some of the potential mechanisms driving observed benefits (e.g. parental self-efficacy), and directions for future research in this area.
5 March 2020 12.30-14.00 Seminar Series - everyone welcome!
***Cancelled due to UCU Strike Action***
See UCU website for further information on the strike action.
Martin Mills
Room W4.01
12 March 2020 12.30-14.00 Reading Group
***Cancelled due to UCU Strike Action***
See UCU website for further information on the strike action.
Jennie Golding & Helen Thouless
Room W4.01
Reading Group—Metacognition
Discussion of 2 papers from the August 2019 volume of ZDM.
Ader, E. (2019). What would you demand beyond mathematics? Teachers’ promotion of students’ self-regulated learning and metacognition. ZDM, 51(4), 613-624.
Hacker, D., Kiuhara, S., & Levin, J. (2019). A metacognitive intervention for teaching fractions to students with or at-risk for learning disabilities in mathematics, ZDM, 51(4), 601-612.
19 March 2020 12.30-14.00 Seminar Series - everyone welcome!
***Cancelled due to UCU Strike Action***
See UCU website for further information on the strike action.
Matt Homer & Rachel Mathieson
Room 537
Can Core Maths solve the post-16 maths problem? Findings of a three-year research project
Core Maths, a set of post-16 AS-sized qualifications first taught in 2014, is intended to increase post-16 maths participation in England from its low rate. This is seen by government as a major priority, with poor maths skills hindering economic competitiveness, impacting on higher education and employment, and undermining the ability of citizens to participate fully in a data-rich, democratic society.
In this seminar, we report on the findings of three-year, mixed-methods, longitudinal study on Core Maths funded by the Nuffield Foundation looking at the challenges and successes this new qualification has faced over the first few years of its existence.
We find that, whilst uptake has been slower than policy-makers might have hoped (current entry numbers around 10K), students and teachers have found Core Maths useful, motivating and supportive of other subjects (e.g. Biology, Geography, Business Studies). The importance of signalling the value of maths, and Core Maths in particular, by government, employers and HE is highlighted as crucial to the long-term success of this important curriculum innovation.
26 March 2020 12.30-14.00 Team meeting
In the light of the Coronavirus outbreak, we thought it would be useful to use this SIG as a team meeting to discuss the ways we adapting to working from home, moving teaching online, connecting with colleagues etc etc. It seems really important to stay connected with each other and find ways to support each other effectively. :-)
2 April 2020 12.30-14.00 Work in progress meeting
Eirini Geraniou
A discussion of "The very multifaceted nature of mathematics research" by Mogens Niss. The discussion will be around: what’s the best structure for maths education papers? What structure do we normally go for? And why? What should we advise our students? The paper will be circulated about a week before.
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Autumn term
5 September 2019 12.30-14.00 Early bird bonus SIG! Work in progress meeting
Morten Elkjær Hansen
Room 944
Lower secondary school students’ difficulties with linear equations
My research addresses linear equations and the difficulties students in lower secondary school experience in their work with such equations. At the seminar, I intend to give an insight into the two directions that I have chosen to for structuring my research work. On the one hand, I research lower secondary students' work and difficulties with equations through data analysis of large amounts of data that Edulab collects through their online platform. On the other hand, I work on developing interventions that should make students better able to work with linear equations. The interventions consist of a learning material that utilizes fun experiences in VR.
19 September 2019 12.30-14.00 Team meeting
Room 826
Welcome back everyone! An informal meeting for the maths team to discuss what's coming up in the year ahead and what we want to see at the SIG in 2019-2020.
26 September 2019 12.30-14.00 Seminar Series - everyone welcome!
Sam Sims
Room 836
Increasing the supply of maths teachers in England
England currently faces a shortage of maths teachers, largely due to an increase in early-career attrition. This shortage is set to worsen in the coming years as the number of secondary school pupils increases. School leaders tend to respond to shortages by lowering recruitment standards or increasing class sizes and disadvantaged pupils are most likely to miss out on having an appropriately qualified maths teacher as a result. This talk will consider three promising approaches for reducing the attrition of maths teachers: the way in which they are assigned to classes, the nature of leadership and management in schools, and pay and incentives.
3 October 2019 12.30-14.00 Work in progress meeting
Candia Morgan
Room 901
Preparing a research proposal - 'Variation' in mathematics education discourses: a study of recontextualisation
My outline proposal to the Leverhulme Trust for this project has been approved and I now have to prepare a full proposal. In the SIG we will look at what is required for the full proposal and I shall seek advice about how to develop the outline.
10 October 2019 12.30-14.00 Work in progress meeting
Suman Ghosh, Shireen Quraishi & Jennifer Whitney
Room 915
UCL and UCL Academy Maths project
The Maths Project is a collaboration between UCL Academy, UCL Access and Widening Participation, Institute of Education and UCL Students. The project was an academic intervention designed to raise Maths attainment at UCL Academy. We will be presenting the initial findings from a research project conducted by the Access and Widening Participation Office.
**Tuesday 15 October 2019 16.00-17.00** Seminar Series - everyone welcome!
David Pomeroy
Room 803
Competing conceptions of social justice in teachers’ debates about ‘ability grouping’ in secondary mathematics
Despite strong evidence for the benefits of mixed attainment grouping, most New Zealand secondary mathematics classes are ‘set’ by prior attainment. The over-representation of Māori (indigenous), Pacific Nation, and working-class students in ‘low ability’ classes, which frequently experience limited opportunities to learn, serves to exacerbate existing inequalities. A small but increasing number of mathematics departments are initiating a transition to mixed attainment mathematics, and the arguments both for and against such a transition are often framed in terms of fairness or social justice. This presentation reports on a qualitative study of three such departments.
Data was generated from cluster group meetings involving three teachers from each of three transitioning schools, and the two researchers. Utilising co-generative dialogues, teachers shared and critically reflected on the rationale for the change and their ongoing pedagogical adaptations. In this presentation, we focus on teachers’ discussions about their support for, and in some cases resistance to, their transition in grouping practices. Their discussions reveal divergent ways in which teachers view social justice in education. For some teachers, their support for the transition was related to their observation that students allocated into classes with a low and narrow achievement range on entry to secondary school tended to remain low mathematics achievers for the duration of their secondary schooling. Other teachers argued that creating classes with a wide range of achievement was an unjust impediment to learning for high achieving students, especially if there was an expectation that students work collaboratively in heterogeneous groups. Having outlined and illustrated some of the variation in teachers’ conceptions of social justice within the ‘ability grouping’ debate, we explore how such conceptions correlate with 1) teachers’ views about mathematical ‘ability’ and 2) how teachers describe effective mathematics teaching.
This is a joint seminar with Centre for Teaching and Teacher Research. Please note the unusual date and time!
24 October 2019 12.30-14.00 Informal team meeting
Room 828
31 October 2019 12.30-14.00 Work in progress meeting
Pete Wright
Room 901
‘Just how visible should maths pedagogy be?’ Early draft of a journal article for discussion.
7 November 2019 12.30-14.00 Work in progress meeting
Helen Thouless
Room 901
Writing about pattern research
As my research on patterns in the early years comes to an end, the writing continues. In this session we will discuss my paper "Dotty Triangles" published in FLM and a paper I am currently writing "Paper plate patterns: Preschool teachers working as a community of practice". I am looking for feedback on the second paper but we will also have some discussion of the process of publishing papers.
14 November 2019 12.30-14.00 Seminar Series - everyone welcome!
Teresa Rojano, Valentina Muñoz-Porras, Santiago Palmas
Room 675
Developing algebra structure sense in a digital environment with an adaptive system
We are exploring the idea of fostering the development of high algebraic competencies in heterogeneous groups of students. To this end, we are developing an adaptive learning environment that provides feedback to users when they engage in transformative algebra tasks. At the seminar, we will present some features of that environment consisting of an online platform specifically designed to help students develop their structure sense in algebra. We will also discuss some insights about learning analytics and adaptive systems.
21 November 2019 12.30-14.00 Work in progress meeting
Elizabeth Lake
Room 901
Connecting teacher emotions to teacher modelling
Teaching is both a cognitive and emotional undertaking, but we know less about how emotions are used by teachers in the classroom. This paper draws from observations and interviews with experienced mathematics teachers in the UK who are engaged in modelling and where the episodes are primarily selected by the teacher use of emotions. I attend to what is meant by teacher modelling, provide some context of the wider study and use the four processes from Bandura’s Social Learning Theory (SLT) to draw out some of the significance of the practices. I offer four paired illustrations to show different forms of modelling: ‘stepping back’, modelling and measurement, teacher error and merging work and play. I explore some affective associations of these forms of modelling, including that modelling is affectively driven, and include implications for teachers who are interested in developing their modelling practices.
28 November 2019 12.30-14.00 Work in progress meeting
***Cancelled due to UCU Strike Action***
See UCU website for further information on the strike action.
Room 915
5 December 2019 12.30-14.00 Seminar Series - everyone welcome!
***Professor Lianghuo Fan's seminar has been cancelled due to UCU Strike Action***
Instead, we will have a Team meeting.
Room 901
12 December 2019 12.30-14.00 Seminar Series - everyone welcome!
Jennie Golding
Room 901
Colleagues will be aware that since Spring 2016 I've been leading a large Pearson-funded suite of longitudinal studies focused on enactment of the new (2014) mathematics National Curriculum and then its follow-on A Level, in schools and colleges using Pearson examinations and/or curriculum resources. Since the DfE is not doing its own monitoring at any scale, and Pearson-using institutions account for the majority at primary, the vast majority (~75%) at GCSE and the majority at A Level, this has been quite interesting, and sometimes influential, work, and fascinating for me as it spans ages 5 to 18. One of the primary studies, though not that associated with the DfE match-funded 'Power Maths' resources, is now complete, as are the two secondary studies. The A Level study has another year to run, and the Power Maths one, best part of two years. The studies ask how teachers are enacting the curriculum, how they and students are using and responding to available resources and assessments, and explore the impact of enacted curriculum on students and their learning. You'll be aware that aspects of the 2014 curriculum were fairly contested, especially for primary, and that aspirations for greater depth of conceptual grasp, mathematical problem-solving and reasoning at KS2, GCSE and A Level have been not unproblematic.
My intention is to briefly outline the studies, and key findings to date, at a high level, so as to leave plenty of time for discussion of areas of interest, and implications especially for our ITE, but also PGR, work. Additionally, I'd very much value views as to priorities for the associated academic writing - thank you.
12 December 2019 6pm onwards @ Carluccio's, Brunswick Square
End of year celebration!