[Maths-Education] Reminder: Mathematics Education Discussion Day Event, MMU. February 19th

[Tony Brown]

Mathematics Education Day Event at ESRI, MMU. February 19th 2014, Room changed to Behrens 0.1, Didsbury campus

Research into maths teaching won?t go, so what?s the remainder?

We are holding a discussion-based day event for researchers into mathematics education and mathematics teacher education who are interested in discussing the ways in which research connects with practice.  We will approach this issue from two directions: first, in terms of some specific examples of practice which are being researched here at MMU, and second in terms of the sorts of assumptions that published research makes about mathematics teaching. At the end of the day Anna Llewelyn of Durham University will be speaking at the ESRI seminar series about the production of ?truths? of the mathematics classroom and the mathematical child within student teachers? talk.

PLAN FOR THE DAY:

From 10.30: Coffee and arrival (we are flexible about when you arrive - or leave - during the day)

Session 1: 11.15am-1pm

New models of school-based teacher education are focusing attention on how universities redefine their role. A team of MMU teacher educators have been involved in exploring how research can be built into their practice with trainees in school contexts. They will present their reflections on how classroom mathematics is variously generated in this work. Yvonne Barnes will discuss her work with a School Direct PCGE trainee who is using video materials as a resource to research his own practice in the teaching of early mathematics. Fiona Cockerham has piloted a research-based collaborative approach to teacher training involving "University schools", towards bridging the gap between theory and application to the classroom. Meanwhile Sue Hough will discuss some of the issues associated with preparing trainee teachers to develop an approach to teaching based on Realistic Mathematics Education. This work will be discussed in relation to wider issues concerning teacher educators? and trainees? understandings of research, and the appropriation of these ideas in government rhetoric and policy ambitions.

1pm ? 2pm: Lunch

Session 2: 2pm- 3.45pm

Alexandre Pais and Tony Brown are currently exploring how articles in Educational Studies in Mathematics highlight different aspects of mathematics education. They have a particular interest in considering how research sees itself ?making things better?.  They have been asking questions about the sorts of change that the various articles set out to promote, and the assumptions that are made about the people involved in such changes. Do the articles assume that teachers/teacher educators will change their practice, or governments will change practice through the regulative apparatus and tell teachers what to do? How do the articles deal with these issues across different countries, social class, curriculums, teacher education models and so on?  What does mathematics education research hope to achieve?

3.45pm ? 4pm: Tea

Session 3: 4pm - 5.30

Anna Llewellyn of Durham University will be leading a session for MMU?s Educational and Social Research Institute?s seminar series ? title and abstract below

From 5.30 onwards:  Pub and food

Anna Llewellyn, Durham University

From functional automata to romantic inquisitor: an exploration of the production of the mathematical classroom and the mathematical child within the becoming of primary school student-teachers in England

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a child in possession of education must be in want of a ?good? mathematics grade. However whilst this, or any, universal ?truth? appears to be real it is instead, a constitution of a particular time and context in society.

In this presentation I use a Foucauldian discourse analysis to explore ?truths? of the mathematics classroom and the mathematical child. To do this I use a longitudinal case study of primary school student-teachers? talk, in relation to two authoritative sites of analysis: mathematics education research and New Labour neoliberal educational policy documents.

From this I argue that there are certain versions of the mathematical classroom and the mathematical child that are acceptable and others that are not. Moreover, I argue that the mathematics child is absent yet present; they are rarely spoken about, and are instead produced through discourses as a normalised cognitive performance of the mathematics classroom. In neoliberal policy the child is produced as a functional automaton, whilst much of mathematics education research is concerned with the naturally curious child. The student-teachers take on these discourses to varying degrees. Mostly they collide creating disorderly discourses of confusion and inequity.





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