Mathematics for Equity: Using Dialogue to Reimagine Mathematics Classrooms
Our team is currently doing research focusing on equity in mathematics classrooms. This work is being funded by a Massey University Research Fund. We are interested in learning about how mathematics education can be reimagined as a tool for developing and sustaining equitable communities. The results of this study may be helpful to improve teaching and learning of mathematics in New Zealand. The question we ask is: How can we re-imagine mathematics education as a tool to develop and sustain equitable communities? Internationally, there is increasing awareness of the need to strive for equity in mathematics education for all students, and for the potential of mathematics to be used as a tool for sustainability and social justice.
Mathematics teachers are central to facilitating equitable outcomes in mathematics learning and shaping student perceptions of mathematics as a tool for society. The focus of our project is to use speculative fiction-a novel methodological approach to reveal the hidden values of mathematics teachers and to position them as agents of change in relation to mathematics teaching for sustainable futures and a socially just world. We are working collaboratively with groups of teachers to support them to re-imagine mathematics education and their role in the classroom, and to enact change.
Project team: Generosa Leach, Jodie Hunter, Aehee Ahn
Funding: Massey University Research Fund (MURF)
Pedagogical actions, student mathematical well-being, and academic achievement.
Equitable mathematics teaching practices directly challenge deficit theorising—including heterogeneous groupings, group-worthy problem solving tasks, and the active positioning of all students as capable. These ambitious teaching pedagogies, while challenging to implement, can also promote the integration of social norms around respect, collaboration, and cultural inclusion for diverse students. For students inducted into reformed classroom communities, there are shifts in their role as a learner. Students are required to engage in ways of learning that privilege both different forms of knowledge and participation. Culturally responsive and sustaining approaches focus on the use of cultural metaphors and values to support students to participate in mathematical practices such as justification and mathematical argumentation while also engaging in respectful social interactions, which promote pro-social skills.
To date, we have shown positive influences on student learning across a range of affective and cognitive measures in small-scale, short-term (one to two year duration) case studies. A key outcome of this project is to engage in a longitudinal period of data collection to investigate student achievement, well-being, and mathematical disposition across a range of school settings. A focus will be on the factors which may support or inhibit sustainability of positive changes and the impact of pedagogical practices on student outcomes.
Project team: Jodie Hunter, Generosa Leach, Bobbie Hunter, Robyn Jorgensen (University of Canberra), and Julia Hill (RMIT, Australia)
Funding: Rutherford Discovery Fellowship
Professional learning of teachers and coaches
Supporting teachers to teach in more socially and intellectually ambitious ways than current norms requires sustained investment in teacher professional development and learning. Research studies report on-going challenges associated with the variability of impact of PLD and with achieving sustained change in teacher pedagogical practices. Kennedy contends that these challenges connect to under-developed ideas about teacher learning and how teachers can be supported to incorporate new ideas into their ongoing systems of practice. A key focus of this project is providing evidence about the necessary and sufficient conditions under which teacher professional learning and development translates into improved outcomes for diverse students in a local context. Developing Mathematical Inquiry Communities professional learning and development is an ambitious undertaking, which holds potential to reconstruct in positive ways the teaching and learning of mathematics.
However, the possibility of change requires teachers to significantly transform practices under-pinned by long-held beliefs and values associated with the nature of and participation in mathematics learning. Key to teacher change and the re-construction of practice in DMIC classrooms is a team of mentors. Their role is to support teachers to critically reflect on their practices and challenge teacher beliefs. This project is investigating critical factors related to the PLD approach and mentor actions that support reconstruction of classroom practices and teacher beliefs.
Project team: Jodie Hunter, Generosa Leach, Bobbie Hunter, Robyn Jorgensen (University of Canberra), and Sze Looi Chin
Funding: Rutherford Discovery Fellowship
Connecting Science, Mathematics, Technology and Engineering (STEM) education and social justice through modelling related to complex systems.
Issues related to social justice and ecological crises significantly (and unevenly) impact indigenous, marginalised, and minoritised communities such as Māori communities and Pacific people in Aotearoa New Zealand. For young people to make informed decisions within their communities and develop both understanding and potential action plans for social justice and environmental sustainability requires an appreciation of the world as comprising of interrelated complex systems (English, 2007). The aim of this study is to examine how educators can work with young diverse learners (specifically Māori and Pacific students) to introduce them to complex systems connected to STEM education and social justice.
This will be accomplished through coupling the use of youth participatory action research (YPAR) with modelling cycles to engage young people as active partners in all aspects of the research process. This will include identifying issues, developing solutions, and taking action while also connecting to values and knowledge systems.
Project team: Jodie Hunter, Generosa Leach, Aehee Ahn, Louise Fitzgerald, Krushil Watene (University of Auckland)
Funding: Te Pūnaha Matatini Seed Funding
Adaptive Expertise of Mathematics Instructional Coaches
Our study investigates the professional learning of mathematics teachers and instructional coaches, focusing on how coaching supports ambitious and equitable teaching. While professional learning and development (PLD) is widely recognised as essential, sustained changes in practice remain difficult to achieve. Instructional coaching offers situated, practice-focused support, yet questions persist about what makes coaching effective, particularly in-the-moment during lessons when coaches and teachers must respond to students’ thinking. Drawing on the frameworks of noticing and of routine and adaptive expertise, our study examines how coaches attend to and interpret students’ mathematical ideas, and how these insights shape their dialogue with teachers.
We investigate the expertise required of instructional coaches, the practices that build trust and foster reflection, and the conditions that support meaningful teacher change. By examining teacher–coach interactions, this research seeks to identify critical factors that enable professional learning to translate into improved mathematics teaching and more equitable student outcomes..
Project team: Jodie Hunter, Generosa Leach, Sze Looi Chin
Funding: Rutherford Discovery Fellowship
Reasoning, Strategy, Language Use in Students’ Fraction Learning
The concept of fractions remains one of the challenging areas in mathematics learning. This study focuses on students’ understanding of fractions through their problem-solving process, with the aim of providing insights for fraction teaching. We explore the diversity of reasoning and strategies students use when comparing fractions, interpreting their approaches not as fixed stages but as fluid, adaptive, and context dependent. We also examine how primary students draw on both mathematical terminology and everyday expressions in their written justifications.
These linguistic choices shed light on how students articulate and develop their mathematical reasoning.
Overall, the study offers a richer picture of students’ fractional thinking, with implications for the design of pedagogical approaches that support students in moving between every day and mathematical ways of thinking, while also valuing the variability of their problem-solving strategies.
Project team: Jodie Hunter, Generosa Leach, Aehee Ahn
Funding: Rutherford Discovery Fellowship