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30/04/2015

From Monday 6th until Friday 10th of April 2015, VVOB in cooperation with the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport (MOEYS) organised their first nation-wide workshop for mathematics teacher trainers. The overall aim was to equip participants with the knowledge and skills to teach mathematics for deeper understanding.

Peer learning

The facilitation of this workshop was in the hands of a core team of teacher trainers and ministry staff, who had gone through an intensive trajectory of capacity building themselves. Together with their colleague teacher trainers, they embarked on a journey of exploration and discussion on teaching primary mathematics. This helped the participants to build up their pedagogical content knowledge, which is the knowledge on instructional strategies, representations and students’ misconceptions. Vital for teaching mathematics for deeper understanding. But knowing without being able to apply is also far from desirable. Therefore the final days of the workshop were used for exactly that last purpose. The participants had to develop an innovating lesson plan and try it out among colleagues. Based on the received feedback from their peers, they were then able to further develop their competences as a teacher.

Outcomes of the workshop

Towards the end of the workshop, a group of participants had to teach their developed lesson to student teachers. This showed that they were able to apply the obtained knowledge on:

  • Use of student-centred activities
  • Effective use of teaching aids
  • Assessing students’ understanding
  • Addressing misconceptions

Future plans

For the coming period it is expected that the teacher trainers apply the new teaching methodology and pass on their knowledge to their student teachers, which will be verified through follow-up visits. Student teachers can then use this knowledge when teaching in primary school. This way the training will also benefit the final target group: the pupils.