Tag Archives: Teachers

One mother’s engagement in her daughter’s self-initiated mathematical activity at home: A case study

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Presenter/Guest Speaker: Sukhwinder Kaur Masters Student, Department of Curriculum and Pedagogy, Faculty of Education, UBC
Date: June 8th, 2022
Host: Dr Cynthia Nicol

Sukhwinder presented her capstone project titled “One mother’s engagement in her daughter’s self-initiated mathematical activity at home: A case study” which is a two-part study on how children interact with mathematics in an informal setting like the home and what role parents play in that interaction. Sukhwinder takes on two roles in this study, a mother, and a researcher.

In the first part of the study, Sukhwinder observed and recorded her daughter’s self-initiated math-related tasks. She presented some observations of her daughter’s activities and the analysis of the mathematical content in those activities. For the second part, her focus moves from the child to the mother. Sukhwinder will be reanalysing the data to focus on herself as a mother, researcher, and mathematics educator. She will analyse how her beliefs could have influenced the way she engaged with her daughter and how her input could have changed her daughter’s activities.

Below are a few slides from the presentation

Find the complete presentation here.

Research in STEM Teacher Education: Examining Teachers’ Knowledge

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Presenter/Guest Speaker: Prof Marina Milner-Bolotin, Department of Curriculum and Pedagogy, Faculty of Education, UBC
Date: April 28th, 2022
Host: Dr Cynthia Nicol

Marina shared her recently published study on preservice physics teachers’ understanding of sound. In her presentation she discussed three questions:

  1. Why do we study teachers’ knowledge?
  2.  How do we study it?
  3. What do we do with the results?

A few slides from the presentation are below. The full presentation can be found here.

Abstract of the study

This study examines the knowledge for teaching of prospective secondary physics teachers as related to the subject of sound waves, specifically the topics of sound level and sound intensity. The data is comprised from future teachers’ responses to the task in which they had to compose a script for an imaginary dialogue between a teacher and a group of students and provide a commentary elaborating on their instructional choices. The topics selected for the task were chosen intentionally as they provide authentic and rich opportunities to bridge mathematics and science concepts while challenging future teachers to consider logarithmic measurement scale and its role in science. The task provided the beginning of the dialogue, that featured a student’s confusion related to the measurement of the sound level using a decibel scale. Future physics teachers were asked to extend this dialogue through describing envisioned instructional interactions that could have ensued. The instructional interchange related to the relationship between sound intensity and sound level, and particular teachers’ responses to the student ideas related to the meaning of a decibel sound level scale were categorized as featuring superficial or deep, conceptual or procedural knowledge for teaching. We describe each category using illustrative excerpts from the participants’ scripts. We conclude with highlighting the affordances of scriptwriting for teachers, teacher educators, and researchers.

Milner-Bolotin, M., & Zazkis, R. (2021). A study of future physics teachers’ knowledge for teaching: A case of a decibel sound level scale. LUMAT: International Journal on Math, Science and Technology Education, 9(1), 336-365. https://doi.org/10.31129/LUMAT.9.1.1519

Reconsidering the Incorporation of Computational Thinking and Coding in Mathematics Education

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Presenter/Guest Speaker: Erica Huang, UBC Department of Curriculum and Pedagogy Doctoral Student
Date: March 31st, 2022
Host: Dr Cynthia Nicol

In this SyMETRI session, Erica first shared highlights from her master’s thesis research. By surveying, observing, and interviewing BC secondary mathematics teachers, the study focused on teachers’ perspectives on incorporating computational thinking (CT) and involving coding in mathematics classrooms. Results showed that most teachers understand CT as being about problem-solving skills. Teachers found that CT and coding activities elicit a high-level engagement, provide different contexts to discuss mathematics concepts, and are accessible to a wide range of students. Erica then presented some questions for possible future research directions as starting points for the group discussion.

Erica’s full master’s thesis can be found here.

Please find below some excerpts from Erica’s presentation

All of Erica’s presentation is available here.