Beverley Cooper

Exploring the challenge of developing student teacher data literacy

Abstract A number of trends are converging to drive the need for more informed teacher data use. These include advocacy for formative assessment and the need for teachers to account for student learning. In this context, assessment literacy and data literacy have emerged as a focus in research and professional development. Problematically, research signals that developing assessment/data literacy is challenging with evidence that teachers may not have mastered relevant aspects of mathematics and statistics. This paper reports lecturer, student teacher and school leader views of the role and requirements of data literacy using data from a larger study into how to foster student teacher mathematical thinking for the breadth of teacher professional work. Data were generated via interviews, surveys and document analysis. Findings suggest a concern and opportunity to develop assessment/data literacy as this calls on mathematical and statistical understanding.

Redesigning Authentic Collaborative Practicum Partnerships: Learnings from Case Studies from Two New Zealand Universities

This chapter reports on work undertaken in two New Zealand universities whose goal was to re-conceptualise and reinvigorate university-school partnerships. The two case studies contribute specifically to an understanding of how genuinely collaborative schooluniversity partnerships can establish shared goals and processes to support the professional learning of student teachers. The authors argue that such partnerships can help to address the disconnect between school and university, and between theory and practice, that is a feature of much of the criticism of university-based ITE.

Scoping the Meaning of "Critical" in Mathematical Thinking for Initial Teacher Education.

Current strong emphasis on literacy and numeracy in New Zealand educational policy, as elsewhere, reverberates in different ways in institutions charged with children’s and adults’ learning. A common response is to locate literacy and numeracy centrally in programmes aimed at preparing children for and enhancing adult participation in 21st century life and work. These agendas overlap in preservice teacher education. Preservice teachers enter Initial Teacher Education (ITE) programmes as adult learners engaged in building literacy and numeracy capability for teaching across the curriculum, working with student achievement data and administrative tasks, aspects of which may also be useful in their wider lives. These activities involve making judgements that require critical thinking, another key policy focus in New Zealand and internationally for children’s and adults’ learning. This article explores meanings of ‘critical’ in the context of mathematical thinking in ITE programmes. Given that mathematically based arguments can have both helpful and harmful consequences for humanity, we propose that development in preservice teachers’ capacity for critical mathematical thinking is crucial. In these times of significant global change we advocate for development of the kind of critical mathematical thinking that facilitates teachers working actively in pursuit of a socially just and sustainable world.

A New Zealand Collaborative University–School Partnership: Applying the STEPS Framework

This chapter considers how the Interpretive Framework was applied to Waikato University’s Community University–School Partnership (CUSP) program, retrospectively. As a well-documented partnership program, the Interpretive Framework was applied to the aspects of the project to see how these aligned. As well as highlighting the synergies between the Interpretive Framework and the CUSP, there were a number of differences which arose and these are discussed as considerations of adding further complexity to the Interpretive Framework.

Looking for Synergies to Meet the Challenges of Teacher Education

Over the past decade, there have been a number of shifts in the expectations we have for student learning, of student teachers on graduation and of teachers. University-based teacher educators need to be able to support teachers to respond to these changes, while simultaneously meeting the expectations associated with their university roles. In this chapter, we use New Zealand as a case study to explore some of the convergences across school curriculum goals, university graduate attributes, and teacher performance standards for graduating and practicing teachers. Making connections across contexts, ideas and activities is a sophisticated process, one that relies on high-level skill, a disposition to make links and sensitivity to occasions where this might be possible and productive. Drawing on our own work and that of colleagues we detail how mathematical thinking and an emphasis on lifelong learning can be seen as embedded in school goals, graduate attributes, and teacher practicing standards. Kress (2000) asserted that we just need to learn how to see; the examples are offered to illustrate how this seeing might be cultivated through initial teacher education and teacher learning.