Ask the Experts !

Educational research is often criticised by ministers and experts for being irrelevant for practising teachers.  What sort of research would be most useful to teachers?  Research into strategies for surviving an OFSTED inspection? Research into using the Numeracy Framework without resorting to throwing it at the classroom wall? Or research that gives suggestions to teachers about how they could improve their practice? 

There has been much research on the subject of teachers' practices.  Many brows have been furrowed and many words have been typed to suggest ways of making both teaching and learning more effective.  This has usually involved talking to teachers, watching teachers in the classroom, assessing the pupils, and theorising the findings.  What has been missing from educational research are the voices of the real experts on what happens in classrooms-- the pupils. But what would the pupils say even if someone was revolutionary enough to ask them?  Obviously they would say they wanted less work, more free time, easier lessons and no homework. Or would they?

The following findings are only part of a research study where the researcher listened to pupils.  A group of 18 pupils were interviewed during Year 6 and 7 at a middle school.  The main aim of the study was to establish how the pupils perceived their experiences in mathematics classrooms.  They were asked to design their ideal mathematics lesson.

Here is their list of essential features of an ideal mathematics lesson:

1. Have fun - includes games, working with others, computers and television programmes
   
2. Talk to my friends - to enable them to complete work in a collaborative and co-operative way.
   
3. Be with my friends - which has obvious implications for setting.
   
4. Do something I enjoy - this includes all the above.
   
5. Get sweets as a reward - actually means get rewards that pupils value but sweets are regarded as the best motivator!
   
6. Use computers - as a way of introducing variety and a means of doing mathematics that is not constantly judged by a teacher.
   
7. Teacher to be funny - means being approachable, showing empathy and interacting with pupils.
   

Task Selection: How do Teachers Choose?

The question of how primary teachers select or reject tasks in mathematics forms part of my current research with one issue being 'Do they consider the mathematics itself?'   'Not always' is the short answer and a recent article in which teachers review numeracy materials (Gold 2000) seems to support this.  One of the resources reviewed, 'Sample Homework Activities' (National Numeracy Strategy 1999) fared particularly badly.   The catalogue of criticisms included formal exercises, long introductions, costly to photocopy and sheets would get lost.   

In many ways this resembles my own findings.   I certainly found that the schools I had contact with had no plans to use the materials from the homework booklet.   I found also that many teachers looking at the homework tasks for the first time talked about issues such as the level of reading, the appearance of the sheets or the practicalities of using them for homework.    The difference came when the teachers were encouraged to look at some of the individual tasks, work on them themselves and talk about what was involved.

For example we worked with a group of teachers on a Y6 task, 'Think of a Number', drawn from the homework booklet.   The central activity is as follows:

Newsletter Editor: Heather Cooke The Folly  Kilcott Road Hillesley Wotton-under-Edge Glos. GL12 7RH