Learning with and from parents: Implications for mathematics education -

Abstract

Early years (4 to 7 years) and middle years (8 to 11 years)

In this workshop, we will provide practical suggestions based on what we have learned from parents and caregivers to help strengthen the home-school partnership, especially when working with diverse students in mathematics.

We will engage the participants with some activities we have used in our work with parents, caregivers and teachers:

• A discussion of quotes from parents (mothers) and teachers that illustrate a range of beliefs about teaching and learning mathematics. We use this activity to engage in a conversation about views on the teaching and learning of mathematics and how these views can impact home-school relationships.
• Explore different approaches to arithmetic operations to increase the value of knowledge gained.
• Parents visit a mathematics class and then debrief the visit, providing a window into their views on mathematics teaching and learning.

We hope to engage with the audience to explore how to adapt these different activities to their local context.

We will also share key components of our work that bring together parents, caregivers and teachers to do mathematics. In particular, we will explore questions such as:

• How to develop an environment that encourages and builds on parents’ ideas about mathematics?
• What are the features of tasks that support parents’ contributions?
• What are the challenges and affordances of parents/caregivers and teachers working together in a mathematics context?

While we will address these questions through examples based on our work, again, we aim to engage with the audience in a discussion on what these questions may look like in their context.