New professional development workshops

Teacher educator members of the TMSJ Network have been developing a series of ‘free to download’ professional development workshops available on the TMSJN website. Each workshop is designed for use with a group of teachers, either primary or secondary, student teachers or experienced teachers. There is a downloadable PowerPoint presentation and accompanying notes for facilitators. The materials are designed for use by a teacher educator or anybody else wishing to facilitate the workshop activities and discussions.

The first workshop, ‘Introduction to Teaching Mathematics for Social Justice’, was published in February 2025. It aims to enhance the practice of teachers and promote their engagement with TMSJ approaches and activities. Pete was awarded the 2024 ISDDE Prize, which was used to support the development of the workshop.

A series of three follow-up workshops are currently being developed as part of the ‘Promoting Socially Just Mathematics Teaching’ research project supported by a BERA Small Grant Fund:

• Socially just approaches to tackling inclusion in mathematics
• Socially just approaches to tackling engagement with mathematics
• Socially just approaches to problem solving in mathematics

Members of the PSJMT research team (teacher educator members of the Network) are currently trialling these workshops with student teachers and experienced teachers. Draft versions are currently available on the TMSJN website. You are welcome to download and use these workshops in their current form. To help us refine, develop and finalise these workshops, we are keen to receive feedback from facilitators who have tried them. Please email feedback to: pwright002@dundee.ac.uk

All workshops incorporate important design principles considered important for promoting socially just pedagogies and practices amongst practitioners. These include:

• Encourage prolonged engagement – avoid ‘one-off’ training sessions.
• Incorporate opportunities to ‘do mathematics’ together throughout sessions.
• Encourage teachers to talk/discuss/contribute.
• Model TMSJ practice during sessions – make this explicit by asking ‘What have I done? Why? How else could I do it?
• Distinguish clearly between modelling tasks and reflecting on pedagogy.
• Facilitate critical reflection on practice through challenging discourses.
• Support teachers in putting socially just maths teaching ideas into practice.

These principles were generated through discussions at a Critical Mathematics Education Working Group session which Pete ran at the BSRLM Conference in Loughborough in June 2024, together with three other members of the Network (Manjinder Jagdev, Cristina Mio, Caroline Hilton).