Speakers

Professor Paul Andrews

Paul Andrews is a Professor of Mathematics Education at the University of Stockholm. In 2015, he was awarded a Swedish Research Council grant of more than SEK 9 million to investigate the development of foundational number sense in year one children in England and Sweden. Paul has a wide range of research interests. He is particularly interested in exploring ways in which mathematics can be taught more effectively to learners of all ages, and current projects include foci on problem solving, linear equations and (FoNS) foundational number sense. He continues to be interested in how mathematics teaching varies cross-culturally and the influence of participants’ beliefs on classroom activity and learner achievement. For a number of years he has been concerned about and seeks evidence to support a challenge to the hegemony of the OECD’s PISA project, which, he argues, has a disproportionate and largely unwarranted impact on the cultural uniqueness of a country’s educational ambitions.

Professor Elisabeth Rathgeb-Schnierer

Elisabeth Rathgeb-Schnierer is a Professor of Mathematics Education at the Mathematics Department, University of Kassel. She is predominately engaged in the education of primary teacher students with emphasis on the development of diagnostic competencies. Elisabeth has various research interests regarding learning and teaching mathematics in heterogeneous groups from kindergarten to primary school as well as at university. One emphasis is on the development of cognitive flexibility in mental arithmetic in different instructional and cultural contexts. Thereby, she has developed a specific approach to investigate flexibility which focuses on the recognition of number patterns as well as relations between numbers and tasks. Additionally, she is involved in different research projects on the professional development of teacher students, particularly on the development of beliefs and diagnostic competencies.