Making Sense of Mathematics Mastery: A comparative judgement approach towards pre-service teachers' understanding

Heshmati, Holly; Wang, Linda; Barmby, Patrick

Abstract

Teaching for Mastery (TfM) has been developing for over a decade in England. As a result, there is the need to assess teacher trainees' understanding of concept. We therefore report a preliminary study that tested an alternative approach, called comparative judgement, as a formative assessment method to identify teacher trainees' views of essential aspects of TfM. Twenty-seven teacher trainees from two research-intensive university PGCE Secondary Maths courses drew a mind-map to show their understanding by the end of the course. Their work was then assessed by 14 Maths course leads in teacher training programmes. We report two main findings. First, the perceived best piece and the least one of trainees' understanding reveal the range of their current understanding. Second, the comparative judgement approach to assessing pre-service teachers' work seemed to be a reliable method to utilise. The results can facilitate mentors to support noticing and implementing of mastery approaches further.

Citation

Heshmati, H., Wang, L., & Barmby, P. (2024, November). Making Sense of Mathematics Mastery: A comparative judgement approach towards pre-service teachers' understanding. Presented at British Society for Research into Learning Mathematics, University of Southampton

• Presentation Conference Type: Conference Paper (published)
• Conference Name: British Society for Research into Learning Mathematics
• Acceptance Date: Nov 1, 2024
• Publication Date: 2024-11
• Deposit Date: Feb 25, 2025
• Publicly Available Date: Feb 25, 2025
• Journal: Proceedings of the British Society for Research into Learning Mathematics
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 44
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 44-47
• Keywords: teaching for mastery; pre-service teachers; comparative judgement; Initial Teacher Training
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/3547884
• Publisher URL: https://bsrlm.org.uk/publications/proceedings-of-day-conference/ip44-3/