Boundary objects and boundary crossing for numeracy teaching

Venkat, Hamsa; Winter, Mark

doi:10.1007/s11858-015-0683-6

Cited by 12 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…However, only an activity theory approach seems to have been taken thus far. Venkat and Winter (2015) claimed that an activity theory approach could be used to investigate how teachers handled boundary objects in classrooms promoting numeracy learning.…”

Section: Boundary Objects and Numeracy Across The Curriculummentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In order to illustrate their argument, Venkat and Winter (2015) drew on excerpts from a preservice teacher's use of a map in the South African school subject, Mathematical Literacy (SA DBE, 2011; see Section 2.1.2 for further details about Mathematical Literacy), and identified possible issues when boundary objects are treated differently in mathematical and contextual activities. A map is used to represent the location of places and can be used for estimating distances in contextual activities (e.g., history and other subjects), whereas the same artefact is a Cartesian plane in mathematics.…”

Section: Boundary Objects and Numeracy Across The Curriculummentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In this sense, these boundary objects bring together two essential dimensions of numeracy: context and mathematical knowledge. Venkat and Winter's (2015) research involved a teacher promoting numeracy learning through a specialised mathematics subject and raises the question of how teachers of subjects other than mathematics treat the boundary objects that exist within the subjects they teach. From this viewpoint, and also because teacher identity was chosen as the analytic lens for the present study, the boundary objects seen in observed lessons were analysed in terms of the meaning these boundary objects had for the teachers.…”

Section: Boundary Objects and Numeracy Across The Curriculummentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The issue of how teachers deal with boundary objects (Star & Greisemer, 1989) when promoting numeracy learning, raised recently by Venkat and Winter (2015), emerged as an area of interest after data were collected. There were several examples in the empirical phase of the study where the teachers used boundary objects in science and history.…”

Section: Re-imagining the Research Designmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Timelines were Barbara wanted students to graph observational data to allow connections between biodiversity and environmental conditions to be made (see Section 6.4.3). Venkat and Winter (2015) used an activity-theory approach and argued that teachers promoting numeracy learning need to be able to move flexibly between the mathematical and contextual perspectives of the boundary objects they use. These perspectives are closely aligned with the mathematical and contextual meanings of boundary objects when these objects are seen as the result of reification in a community of practice (Wenger, 1988).…”

Section: Numeracy Across the Curriculummentioning

confidence: 99%

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Teacher identity as an embedder-of-numeracy: identifying ways to support teachers to promote numeracy learning across the curriculum

Bennison¹

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Numeracy encompasses the capacity to cope with the mathematical demands of life. The context in which mathematics is used is an important dimension of numeracy; so one way that schools can provide opportunities for students to develop this capacity is to take advantage of numeracy learning opportunities across the curriculum. Teachers need to be able to identify these opportunities, and design and implement appropriate tasks in their classrooms for this approach to be successful.Research interest in numeracy is increasing internationally because of growing recognition of the impact of low levels of numeracy: on the economic and social well-being of individuals, and on the economies of countries. Researchers have investigated professional development interventions that support an across the curriculum approach to numeracy but this research does not appear to have examined factors that influence how teachers implement learning from such interventions. This study responds to the question of how teacher identity can be used as an analytic lens to identify factors that influence the ways in which teachers promote numeracy across the curriculum, in order to ascertain ways to assist them in this endeavour.A framework for teacher identity situated in the specific context of promoting numeracy learning across the curriculum was developed and evaluated in this study. Thus, the research was conducted in two phases: a theoretical phase and an empirical phase. A framework for identity as an embedder-of-numeracy along with an adaptation of Valsiner's zone theory was proposed as a way of capturing and understanding both the complexity and dynamic nature of a teacher's identity in this context. An extensive review of literature informed the theoretical phase of the research. Case studies of seven teachers were utilised to re-examine the proposed framework and the sociocultural approach employed. This empirical phase was conducted over a two-year period, with teachers recruited because their participation in a larger study indicated that changes in their identity in relation to promoting numeracy learning were likely over this period. Data sources drawn on to develop the case studies were semi-structured interviews and lesson observations conducted during visits to teachers' schools. The focus of each case study was on the teacher's identity as an embedder-of-numeracy when teaching science or history.The proposed framework for identity as an embedder-of-numeracy was organised by five Domains of Influence: Life History, Knowledge, Affective, Social, and Context. Characteristics that have previously been shown to influence a teacher's identity were included in the framework if it could be argued that they were likely to influence how teachers promote numeracy learning through the subjects they teach. This framework captures the complexity of identity as an embedder-ofnumeracy and could guide the design of empirical studies, but does not reveal how specific identities are formed and possible trajectories these identities mi...

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Section: Boundary Objects and Numeracy Across The Curriculummentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Boundary Objects and Numeracy Across The Curriculummentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Boundary Objects and Numeracy Across The Curriculummentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Re-imagining the Research Designmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Numeracy Across the Curriculummentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations