The aim of our project was to support secondary teachers from six different regions of New Zealand to collaboratively share resources with each other to enhance their ability to design and implement cognitively demanding, culturally sustaining tasks that engage students in mathematical practices and support students in learning key mathematical concepts. The quality of students’ mathematical learning and experiences is contingent on the quality of tasks that students work on in the classrooms. Designing effective, cognitively demanding culturally sustaining mathematical tasks requires knowledge of the students (their culture, their mathematical background, their families etc.) as well as pedagogical content knowledge to connect students’ prior understandings to new concepts through meaningful classroom activities. This ambitious teaching is challenging but essential for student learning, especially for those who have traditionally been underserved in mathematics education such as Pāsifika and Māori students in New Zealand. We used video-recordings of inquiry-based lessons and teacher and student interviews to explore how secondary tasks support students’ mathematical learning.
Principle Investigators: Dr Rachel Restani and Dr John Tupouniua
Related links: Developing Tasks with Secondary Teachers is a side project of the Developing Mathematical Inquiry Communities project
Funding: Massey University (CeRME)