Anna Wernberg

Mathematical Teaching Moments: Between Instruction and Construction

Internationally there is much discussion about what and how mathematics should be integrated into preschool programmes. In Swedish preschools, there is a strong tradition of valorising children’s play. Using video data, we identify how one teacher in a Swedish preschool recognises and builds on mathematical teaching moments that arise from children’s play. We use these data to discuss how the guided play context facilitates some teacher actions while constraining others. Respectful listening and asking challenging questions seem to stimulate the development of children’s mathematical curiosity. However, the teacher is not able to insist that her suggestions for activities are taken up by the children.

When Is Young Children’s Play Mathematical?

One of Bishop’s six mathematical activities is playing which includes modelling, hypothetical thinking and abstraction. These can be in young children’s play, but do they by their presence make this play mathematical? In this chapter, we explore this question by first defining play and then comparing its features with what is known about mathematicians’ academic play and how mathematics education researchers have described young children’s play. From this theoretical discussion, we discuss the features of play, which can enable it to be described as mathematical. We use these features to analyse a small episode of children playing to discuss if and how their play could be considered to be mathematical.

Stories Neglected About Children’s Mathematics Learning in Play

In this paper we describe stories of mathematics learning in play that are often neglected in this era of schoolification and discussions of what counts as learning in early childhood. Drawing on theories of early childhood teaching and learning that emphasize the importance of teachers’ (a) content knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge, and knowledge of children’s development, (b) action competencies, and (c) attitudes and beliefs, we explore three stories of child-teacher interactions in play. We found that, despite different political and public perceptions of what counts as learning in three different countries, preschool teachers evidenced competencies in similar ways – each illustrating a neglected story of children’s mathematics learning.

Differential Enhancement in Mathematical Pre-School Class Activities

In this chapter, an adapted version of Dowling’s distributive strategies is used to show how two children, Klara and Teo, are provided with differential enhancement in the mathematical learning opportunities that they are offered. The analysis shows that the use of everyday settings of mathematics problems, including expectations about the social relationships in those settings, can cause children to collude in the kind of enhancement that they experience. Expectations about the social relationships, within the problems being solved and between the participants, contributed to the two children using strategies which channelled them towards operating in different domains.