BSRLM day conference proceedings

Proceedings of the Day Conference

These summaries are of research papers presented at the Day Conference held at the UCL on Saturday 4th March 2023. Full papers are available at http://www.bsrlm.org.uk/publications/proceedings-of-day-conference.

Content

Incorporating STEM learning scenarios in mathematics teaching: a study on the effectiveness of a professional development programme

Özdemir Tiflis1 and İpek Saralar-Aras2

1 Brunel University London, 2 Ministry of National Education

This study evaluates the effectiveness of a STEM education professional development programme for mathematics teachers. The goal of the programme was to improve their understanding of STEM education and learning scenarios. The research involved 267 mathematics teachers participating in specific learning sessions on STEM education and various STEM learning scenarios. The study highlights the importance of teachers’ perspectives on STEM education and how their awareness affects instructional practices and incorporation of STEM lessons in their syllabi.

PGCE mathematics students’ responses to some multiplicative reasoning items

Dietmar Küchemann

King’s College London

This paper discusses PGCE students’ responses to some multiplicative reasoning items, intended for use in secondary school. Some items involving similarity and enlargement turned out to be quite challenging.

Primary school teachers tackling social justice issues whilst teaching mathematics: Findings from the Primary Maths & Social Justice research project

Pete Wright1, Caroline Hilton2 and Joel Kelly3

1 University of Dundee, 2 IOE, UCL's Faculty of Education & Society, 3 The Blue School, CofE

We report on the initial findings from a participatory action research project involving a collaboration with six teacher researchers in two primary schools in Greater London. The project aimed to explore how teachers can maintain and build on their interest in addressing social justice issues through their teaching of mathematics, and to consider how to help students develop their critical understanding of mathematics and collective mathematical agency.

Oh! - is that how you do it!’ Learning from cross-phase collaborative work in the Years 5-8 Continuity project

Mary Stevenson1, Alison Hopper2, Ruth Richmond3 and Zoe Nye4

1 National Centre for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics, 2 Mathematics in Education and Industry, 3 Tudor Grange Academy Trust, 4 Bishop Grosseteste University

We report on work of the Years 5-8 Continuity project, which runs across England in Maths Hubs, led by the National Centre for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics (NCETM). The aim of this project is to strengthen primary to secondary transition by focusing on curriculum and pedagogical continuity in mathematics over Years 5 to 8. Early findings indicate that cross-phase engagement with colleagues through focused and sustained professional activity is having a positive impact on practice and school/departmental approaches.

Mentors’ views on challenges faced – and lessons learnt – while mentoring mathematics student teachers in FE during the Covid-19 lockdowns

Natheaniel Machino

University of East Anglia

This report is part of a study which seeks to gain an insight into the role of mentoring in the mathematical and pedagogical knowledge development of mathematics student teachers in further education colleges. The report is an analysis of mentors of further education mathematics student teachers' responses to anonymised survey and interviews.

Investigating the impact of using natural history videos on the teaching and learning of primary mathematics

Ems Lord1, Liz Woodham1 and David Millington2

1 University of Cambridge, 2 The Natural Curriculum

The Natural Curriculum is an online resource that uses BBC natural history videos to inspire primary school learners in both literacy and mathematics. In collaboration with NRICH, the project has designed and tested four online problem-solving math lessons for primary-aged learners, which showed positive impacts on pupil engagement and learning. Some challenges were identified in how the primary mathematics curriculum is perceived by some learners.

School mathematics education in Ukraine: challenges and prospects

Volodymyr Proshkin

Loughborough University

We report on the main trends in the development of school mathematics education in Ukraine in the context of existing problems and possible ways to solve them. We also represent the research results on the mathematical literacy level of 15-year-old students and the development of STEM education.

Learning from a hundred years of teaching about fractions and decimals

Rose Griffiths

University of Leicester

Two pivotal changes in the 1970s altered the balance of teaching about common fractions compared to decimal fractions in the UK and elsewhere: the move to decimal systems for money and measurement, and the advent of cheap electronic calculators. This paper examines some key ideas, gleaned from teacher-guidance from 1917 to 2021, which have helped shape new guidance for primary teachers through a Nuffield-funded research and development project.

Studies in Mathematics Education in an SSCI Indexed Journal: Suggestions for the UK based on the Turkey Example

Mehmet Kasım Koyuncu

Istanbul Sabahattin Zaim University

This study examines the mathematics education studies in an SSCI Indexed Journal in Turkey and includes suggestions for other countries.

Towards an enactivist methodology for analysing a large video data set

Alistair Bissell

University of Bristol

This article begins to outline an enactivist methodology for working with a large video data set. I share some representations of data and show how these could be used to select sections of video for further, more detailed, analysis.

Duo Virtual Reality and tangible artefacts in geometry education review

Liying Huang and Taro Fujita

University of Exeter

The aim of this project is to strengthen students’ spatial/geometric thinking by investigating the use of new technologies (VR) for teaching mathematical geometry. In this paper, we have reviewed 20 selected papers from Web of Science, and the results of the current study suggest that teaching through a combination of VR and physical objects, combining virtual reality simulations with physical manipulatives, creates an interaction between the teaching environment and the learner, providing a positive impact and higher efficiency in the teaching of geometry in future classrooms.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).