1. Observing systems – how do we see what we see? Laurinda Brown University of Bristol Graduate School of Education
2. I KNOW YOU BELIEVE YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU THINK I SAID, BUT I AM NOT SURE, YOU REALISE, THAT WHAT YOU HEARD , IS NOT WHAT I MEANT
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5. What is learning? How do we do it? So, what should I do as a teacher? (particularly teaching mathematics – another thing that keeps me awake nights and as a mathematics teacher educator)
6. … conscious thought is the tip of an enormous iceberg. It is the rule of thumb among cognitive scientists that unconscious thought is 95 per cent of all thought and that may be a serious underestimate. Moreover, the 95 per cent below the surface of conscious awareness shapes and structures all conscious thought (Lakoff and Johnson, 1999:13)
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8. Minds make motions, and they must make them fast - before the predator catches you, before your prey gets away from you. Minds are not disembodied logical reasoning devices (Clark, 1997, p. 1).
16. Creating a learning culture As a faculty we try to have a bank of lots of different ideas for different activities and sometimes I try to write some of them down for other people to understand but it doesn’t work so it’s always when you hear someone talking about a topic saying ‘Oh you can do this little game or if you use a pyramid like this – it’s keeping those conversations going and at faculty meetings spending time doing that rather than there’s such and such a task coming up which you can put on a piece of paper and people do understand it. But doing practical activities is difficult to put on a piece of paper or a game or whatever you’re doing. (Interview, Teacher H, 1991/2)
17. Enactivist Methodology Two key features: 1) The importance of working with and from multiple perspectives 2) The creation of models and theories which are good-enough for, not definitively of as a continuing process throughout the research transforming the views of those taking part
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21. What did we do? Research design Practicalities: 4 teachers and 4 researchers Twice a term for a year video-taped lesson Lesson observations at most once a fortnight Teachers interviewed 6 times in the year For each teacher 6 students interviewed 6 times in the year and their written work collected Children wrote about ‘what have I learnt’ at the end of an activity and encouraged to write whilst doing their mathematics.
22. Multiple views One researcher looked at each of algebraic activity; meta-commenting, pupil perspectives; similarities and differences across classroom cultures; similarities and differences in classroom cultures
23. This experiment confirmed our belief that different people reflect upon identical situations diversely. In these joint reflections, the diversity of individual reflections is of much benefit as it shows the participants other perspectives than just their own (Hošpesová et al., 2007). This resulted in the decision to compare our reflections with reflections of other people (teachers, teacher educators, researchers). Jana Macháčková, Group B
24. Good-enough theories - Meetings 6 whole day meetings of teachers and researchers in one year for joint planning, doing mathematics together, joint video reflection Pre- and post- meetings to the day meetings for the ‘researchers’ to share patterns emerging from our individual strands and allow strands to interact
25. And this was all thought through before putting in the bid!
26. What were findings? Patterns over time – being able to go back and look at data from the data set What visitors to the classrooms said Reduced to a ‘story’ – another brief summary of the outcomes...
27. The (A) story! The teachers’ behaviours are contingent on their pupils’ actions and responses ... ... as they work on mathematical activities that allow the pupils’ to explore similarity and difference often through classification. The pupils’ creativity is supported as they are encouraged in the asking of their own questions ... ...the process of working on which leads to the articulation of complex structures and patterns supporting algebraic descriptions.
28. - There were some counterexamples to that. Remind me what that is. ~ One that does not fit the conjecture. - OK, Ben has done something very mathematical. He ’ s gone back and looked again and changed it [the conjecture]. ~ [Later in the same lesson.] All two digit numbers will add up to 99. [David ’ s conjecture is written on the board.] ~ I ’ ve got another counterexample to Ben ’ s. - This is how mathematicians work; are there counterexamples? Are two conjectures actually linked and so on.
29. The power of the generic After so many years you’ve got this bank of things that you know work really well and you realise certain methods you can apply to so many different problems. So, simple things like drawing a grid on the board – yes you can do a multiplication square, but you can do hundreds of other things so you can do percentages of amounts and percentages of fractions or you can do something with algebra where you’re multiplying the terms together or you can have pyramids where you’re adding algebraic terms or you’re adding number terms and sometimes I know in my head banks of things that I know are going to work well and so when I plan them all I have to do is I write down one word. (Interview, Teacher H, 1991/2)
