Jennifer Hall

Engaging Teachers and Students with Real Data: Benefits and Challenges

Using real data in statistics education provides significant benefits for both teachers and students. In this chapter, considerations faced by teachers when using real data are explored with regard to student engagement and learning, as well as potential pedagogical issues. To address these issues, suggestions for obtaining and using real data are offered, as is the description of a successful example of a primary data collection project – Census at School. The chapter concludes by considering the use of real data in the training of teachers, and extends the example of Census at School to explore Canadian professional development workshops for elementary teachers.

Students’ Emotional Experiences Learning Mathematics in Canadian Schools

In this chapter, we draw on Canadian Kindergarten to Grade 9 students’ autobiographical accounts of learning mathematics in schools and their drawings of their feelings about doing mathematics in order to explore students’ relationships with mathematics and the emotions associated with doing mathematics. Drawing on enactivist thought, we offer insight into the complex relationship between emotion and learning. Our analysis reveals a nuanced emotional landscape associated with learning mathematics, including positive, negative, and highly topic-dependent relationships with mathematics among this population, together with narratives of changing relationships that shed light on the kinds of pedagogies that support and detract from learning. Drawings of students’ heads feature widely in the data, prompting us to raise questions about the disembodied nature of mathematics learning in schools.

Re-Framing Testing to Better Fit Within Problem-solving Classrooms: Ways to Create and Review Tests

We offer two alternative strategies to simply giving paper-and-pencil mathematics tests that use student thinking as a basis, which we identify as a key underpinning of teaching in problem-solving classrooms. Using student thinking as a basis refers to the idea that teaching is inseparable from, grounded in, and formed by students’ ideas. Specifically, we discuss (1) involving students in developing tests to help them prepare for writing tests and (2) reviewing test material by having students compare, analyze, and critique their classmates’ test responses and subsequently revise their own work. These two strategies are re-castings of the traditional paper-and-pencil test. Teachers can use the strategies to promote deep approaches to learning and, as a result, help students to perform better on tests.

Gendered? Gender-Neutral? Views of Gender and Mathematics Held by the Canadian General Public

By investigating the general public’s views, we can better understand the cultural milieu in which mathematics teaching and learning take place. In this study, part of an international research project, I investigated the Canadian general public’s views of gender and mathematics. Using a brief survey, people on the street and in public spaces in four demographically diverse locations in the Canadian province of Ontario were asked their views on the topic. The findings suggest reasons to be both cautiously optimistic and concerned. While the most common response to the questions examined typically was to see no gender difference, more participants held a gendered view (typically privileging boys) than a gender-neutral view. Interestingly, no age group-related differences occurred in response patterns, but gender-related differences in response patterns were evident.

Autobiographical accounts of students' experiences learning mathematics: A review

In this article, we review published literature that draws on autobiographical accounts of students’ experiences learning mathematics. We summarize the main findings of the target literature and present recommendations for further research that will extend this field. Our review indicates that autobiographical and narrative methodological approaches have the potential to occasion important advances in our knowledge of students’ experiences learning mathematics. However, relative to accounts of preservice teacher learning, there is a paucity of published research that documents the mathematics learning experiences of kindergarten to Grade 12 students.RśuméDans cet article, nous faisons un compte-rendu des publications présentant des récits autobiographiques qui relatent des expériences d’étudiants en situation d’apprentissage des mathématiques. Nous résumons les principaux résultats présentés dans la littérature cible et nous proposons des recommandations de recherches ultérieures susceptibles d’élargir ce champ d’études. Notre compte-rendu indique que les approches méthodologiques de type autobiographique et narratif permettent de réaliser des avancées importantes lorsqu’il s’agit d’améliorer nos connaissances des expériences d’apprentissage des mathématiques chez les étudiants. Toutefois, comparativement aux récits traitant de l’apprentissage des enseignants en formation ou des stagiaires, les recherches qui documentent les expériences d’apprentissage en mathématiques d’élèves de la maternelle à la 12e année sont beaucoup plus rares.

Postdoctoral scholars in a faculty of education: Navigating liminal spaces and marginal identities

The last decade has seen a slow but steady increase in the number of postdoctoral scholars employed in faculties of education. In this article, seven postdoctoral scholars who worked in the same Canadian faculty of education explore their past positionings within the postdoctoral space. We share personal narratives related to issues of agency and identity in our relatively ill-defined positions. Similar to other early career academics, our reflections expose key concerns surrounding clarity of expectations, workload and work/life balance, and issues related to community and collegiality. In addition, we identify institutional or structural constraints that need to be reconciled in order to support postdoctoral scholars in their aspirations for success on personal and institutional levels. We provide recommendations and invite dialogue with regard to this emerging role in faculties of education.