Three schools in Wellington have recently banded together for an 18-month project, which will explore how having more than one teacher in a classroom co-teaching maths lessons improves student learning and teacher practice.
The project is funded by the Ministry of Education through its new Teacher-led Innovation Fund, and is being overseen by Raewyn Eden, a PhD student at Victoria’s Faculty of Education.
It came about through Raewyn’s professional contact with teaching staff at the three participating schools: Brooklyn, Berhampore and Newtown. “It’s very rare that teachers on the front line get the opportunity to step back and rigorously investigate their practice, so it’s great they can do that with support from the Ministry,” she says.
The project builds on emerging findings from Raewyn’s PhD research which looks at how teachers might collaborate to strengthen the way maths is taught. “My PhD investigation has involved working with a group of teachers in one school to establish how they could collaborate to support their practice in the teaching of maths. What has emerged is a model of co-teaching—pairs of teachers joining forces to plan and teach maths lessons together and then reflect on that shared experience.”
Raewyn says co-teaching brings a range of benefits. “It really enhances the conversations teachers have about how they worked. It also slows the lessons down in a way that means they can get more in-depth with the subject matter. Furthermore, the teachers are noting a big difference between simply observing a fellow teacher and actually teaching alongside them—they find they are more accountable to each other which sharpens their focus.”
Raewyn says while her doctoral research is mostly about how to best support the teachers involved, the Ministry-funded project—which got underway in August this year—will also be focusing on the benefits to students, with a goal of improving maths performance.
Raewyn’s PhD is being supervised by Associate Professor Joanna Higgins from Victoria’s Education faculty, who is also helping to co-ordinate the pilot programme. Dr Higgins says the project fits the government’s focus on responding to inequitable outcomes, particularly regarding maths education. “The fund is all about building a wider educational community and sharing excellent teaching practices—this model achieves that while taking into account the different contexts of schools.”
Raewyn says it is a great opportunity for the teachers involved to really advance their professional learning and development within the context of their day-to-day work, and to collectively build important knowledge that can be shared with others. “The Ministry of Education is very interested, as we are, in disseminating the findings that come out of this. It has made the funding available with the express purpose of giving teachers the opportunity to explore their practice but also to create knowledge that can be used more widely in the sector, beyond the walls of their schools.”
The project is one of two Teacher-led Innovation Fund initiatives in which Victoria University is involved—Dr Azra Moeed is providing research advice to teachers at Porirua College in a project which aims to enhance science teaching practice and improve learning outcomes for students in Years 10 and 12.