Reflection on lesson study in South African secondary mathematics education, structured by a discursive resource

Professor Jill Adler

Jill Adler holds the SARChI Mathematics Education Chair at the University of the Witwatersrand, which focuses on research and development in secondary mathematics education. Jill has spearheaded several large-scale teacher development projects, the most recent, within the Chair ambit, begun in 2009, is called the Wits Maths Connect Secondary project. This work builds on her research on teaching in multilingual classrooms, and teacher professional development. Jill is a Visiting Professor of Mathematics Education at King’s College London, UK, and President-elect of ICMI – the International Commission of Mathematical Instruction. She is the recipient of the 2012 Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf) Gold Medal for Science in the Service of Society, and the 2015 Freudenthal Award.

Abstract

Linked research and development forms the central pillar of the Wits Maths Connect Secondary Project (WMCS), a project now working with secondary mathematics teachers in several districts in one province in South Africa. An element of our professional development work is an adapted version of Lesson Study where collaborative teams of teachers and project researchers plan, reflect, replan and reteach a lesson, the focus of which is identified by teachers. A framework for describing and studying mathematics teaching that has been developed through the R & D in the project, intentionally named Mathematics Discourse in Instruction (MDI)(Adler & Ronda, 2015, 2017), structures planning and reflection in our lesson study work. In this seminar, I will describe a lesson study cycle, and reflect on MDI as a discursive resource in this context of professional development practice.

References

Adler, J., & Ronda, E. (2015). A framework for describing Mathematics Discourse in Instruction and interpreting differences in teaching. African Journal of Research in Mathematics, Science and Technology Education. doi:DOI:10.1080/10288457.2015.1089677)

Adler, J., & Ronda, E. (2017). Mathematical discourse  in instruction matters. In J. Adler & A. Sfard (Eds.), Research for educational change: Transforming researchers' insights into improvement in mathematics teaching and learning (pp. 64-81). Abingdon: Routledge