Reintroduciendo actividades etnomatemáticas maoríes en el aula: conceptos tradicionales maoríes de orientación espacial

Māori mathematical practices were excluded from schooling in Aotearoa/New Zealand for over 150 years as a result of explicit policies precluding the use of the Indigenous language and culture. As a consequence of the range of assimilationist policies, by the 1970s, the Māori language was considered endangered. In response to the perilous state of the language, Māori communities set up their own schools, initially outside of the state system, to support the revitalisation of the language and culture. However, the reintroduction of the cultural knowledge in areas such as mathematics has not matched language revitalisation efforts. Many original ethnomathematical practices are no longer in general use in the Indigenous community and the practices valued by the European majority remain the norm in the state-mandated school curricula. Spatial orientation is an example of the mathematics curricula content that is based on Western mathematical perspectives. To provide a Māori perspective, this paper draws on interviews with elders and historical data to examine Māori spatial orientation terms and the spatial frames of references that they are derived from. Students in a Māori-medium school were tested on their understanding of this traditional knowledge. As a consequence, a series of learning activities based on Māori spatial orientation concepts were developed and trialled. The outcomes of these learning activities showed some increased understandings about Māori spatial orientation concepts

Discussing mathematics teacher education for language diversity

As part of a large research project about supporting preservice teachers to learn about teaching argumentation for critical mathematics education in multilingual classrooms, we outline a framework for considering the knowledge, skills and practices that we, as teacher educators, consider mathematics teachers need. Our objective for describing such a framework is to provide a discussion document for teacher educators, primarily at our institution, but also for others who aim to improve their mathematics teacher education practices and want to determine theoretically how to navigate the complexity of changing our practices.publishedVersio

Talking about mathematics in two languages: Can parental views inform the development of digital games for young children?

In this article, the results are presented from a survey of parents’ views about the digital games that their young multilingual children play. Previous research has indicated that parents struggled to describe how their children were learning from playing digital games. The results from this study indicate that parents could provide information about the digital games and the mathematical language they invoked. This information could be useful in developing playful, digital games that support multilingual children to talk about mathematics. The survey also provides insights into the follow-up qualitative research studies that are needed to support the development of new digital games

When does a difference make a difference? Teaching about language diversity in mathematics teacher education

There has been little attention in mathematics education research about how to include issues to do with language diversity in teacher education. This paper describes the process used by two teacher educators to examine their own practices of linking multilingual perspectives to mathematics education in their work with preservice teachers. By systematically analysing their discussion about a three-hour, mathematics-teacher-education workshop on proportional thinking, the teacher educators were able to identify a series of Discourses. They considered that these Discourses underlay their decision making about how language diversity could be raised with preservice teachers. The results highlight the complexity connected to raising language diversity issues in mathematics teacher education. For example, deciding what challenging content should be provided to preservice teachers is affected by the need to develop relationships with them as well as managing their learning. Joint reflection by the teacher educators was needed to ensure that the aim of challenging preservice teachers about how to deal with language diversity issues in mathematics classrooms could be achieved