This conference was held in Hamburg in July 2016. Ingrid’s paper was accepted for Topic Study Group 50 (Teacher learning) and Marie’s was accepted for Topic Study Group 36 (Task design).
The abstracts for our contributions are given here:
Designing and developing mathematics lesson plans in a design research project: what teachers learnt
This paper reports on teachers’ learning, both in terms of what they learnt, and how they learnt, while taking part in a design research project (FaSMEd). In collaboration with researchers, teachers planned, taught and reflected on lessons that represented a significant departure from their normal practice. Interview data suggests that the teachers learnt not only about different ways of teaching and how to implement these, but also about the use of low-tech tools to support their teaching, with a particular emphasis on formative assessment. For FaSMEd this is important as it provides insight into what to include when developing a toolkit to support teachers in the use of formative assessment in their classrooms.
Using ‘Learning experiences’ in south African classrooms: implications for a teacher toolkit
This paper reports on a design research project in which carefully designed lessons, or learning experiences, were used in authentic South African classrooms with the aim of refining the lessons for the South African context. Over three rounds of classroom interventions, teachers and researchers collaborated to design and re-design the learning experiences, drawing on the emerging lessons learnt from trials in classrooms. The paper discusses key design decisions, such as ways to introduce the main classroom activity (task).
The ultimate aim of the research is to produce a toolkit to support teachers in the effective use of formative assessment in their classrooms. The findings of the research reported here will inform the development of tools for this toolkit, and some thoughts about the implications of this study, in terms of the toolkit, are discussed in the concluding remarks of the paper.