The Mathematics Teacher

The mathematics teacher is at the core of this research and other themes are related to what the teacher does in class, with tasks and resources and the teacher’s engagement with the collectives. With regards to the mathematics teacher, I now present the context of the school wherein teachers work, the profile of the teacher and the role in the department or school.

5.2.1 The School Context

Schools exist in a socially meaningful and goal-orientated environment and are often influenced by several factors. I recall here the general context of English secondary school with focus on mathematics teaching and learning, as previously discussed in Chapter 1. It is vital therefore for the researcher to be sensitive to and capture the political, social and cultural contexts of the school. The Oxford English Dictionary defines context as “The circumstances that form the setting for an event, statement, or idea, and in terms of which it can be fully understood”³⁰. This qualitative research is intended to enable an understanding of the mathematics teachers’ experiences with digital resources and the context which makes their everyday engagements meaningful. For the most part, the mathematics teachers’ local contexts act as ‘givens’

that could constrain or enable their everyday practices and the ways in which they can access resources and opportunities for professional practice and growth. Context shapes the way an activity is interpreted and understood by those involved in a particular practice. For instance, government teaching standards, availability of teaching resources and a particular school ethos influence the way teachers undertake their practice. Morgan (2006) distinguishes two dimensions of context: the context of situation, in which an individual is immediately embedded (for instance, a student or teacher at school in the immediate situation of the classroom, the activity with digital resources, within a current engagement with an educational experience), and the context of culture, which includes the context of situation and the overall setting,

30 https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/context

107 school institution and the world outside the school. The context of culture could be argued to approximate the combination of the in-school and out-of-school contexts (Sutherland, 2007).

In recent years, mathematics education research has paid increasing attention to the issue of context. Kynigos and Psycharis (2009, p. 269) describe this growing sensitivity of the mathematics education research community towards context thus:

shift of the focus of investigation in the field of mathematics education community to study context not as a backdrop of the teachers’/students’

activities but rather as an integral part of the teaching/learning process that influences the research objectives, the followed approach as well as the analysis of the results.

I believe that local contextual complexity and the peculiarity of individual school contexts impact and shape teachers’ professional activities. This includes the context of situation and context of culture, which surround and weave together the whole use of digital and non-digital resources by mathematics teachers. Context, therefore, in my estimation has a structuring and transforming impact on teachers’ practices.

I now discuss the profile of the mathematics teacher.

5.2.2 The Profile of the Mathematics Teacher

This research takes into consideration the possible effects of teachers’ demographic profiles (gender, age, education and years of teaching experience) on their professional practices. Inan and Lowther (2010) argued that teachers’ demographic characteristics (years of teaching and age) and their years of teaching have significant positive effects on their readiness to embrace technology integration, while age was non-significant. In related previous research, the findings suggest that female teachers may be less confident than males about using technology, while with regards to the years of teaching the study suggested no significant effect (Pierce & Ball, 2009). This, in my opinion, indicates that the effects of teachers’ demographics profiles on their professional practices may vary from teacher to teacher and from context to context.

108 The mathematics teachers’ demographic profiles provided data on basic characteristics which are of interest in this research and are informative elements in the analysis. The teacher demographic profile consists of self-reported demographic characteristics elicited through a form³¹. This provided data on the teacher’s age, previous work experience (if there is any), educational qualifications and specialisation, years of teaching, year groups taught and their role in the department or school. Although the teacher profile is not a central focus of my research, it provides background information which may be of use in my effort to understand the appropriation and use of resources in their mathematics teaching practices.

5.2.3 Role in the Department/School

Teachers in the UK take on a wide range of duties besides teaching in the department and school leadership (Day, Hopkins, Harris, & Ahtaridou, 2009). Scholars suggest that leadership has significant impacts on the quality of school organisation and on students’ learning, and serves as a catalyst for unleashing the potential capacities that already exist (Leithwood, Harris, & Hopkins, 2008). The mathematics teacher’s role in the school or department could be an important factor in shaping their work, how teaching is done in the schools and how they access resources and support collaboration. The teacher as a leader has a responsibility to help promote teaching and learning preconditions such as working habits, attitudes, knowledge, motivation and collaboration among colleagues.

In the literature, teacher leaders have been designated variously as coordinator, coach, specialist, lead teacher, department chair, mentor teacher, and teacher trainer just to mention a few (Mangin & Stoelinga, 2008). Neumerski (2013, p. 320) argued that

“there is little consensus around what constitutes ‘teacher leadership’ … it tends to be an umbrella term referring to a myriad of work”. For Lovett (2018), leadership is fluid space where multiple leaders engage in leadership practices with the intent of

31 This form is attached in Appendix E.

109 leadership roles connected to students being distributed in order to enhance their learning. However, this is subject to what those in formal leadership positions permit and constrain through expected compliance standards. Although leadership style is not a focus of this study, it forms anecdotal evidence worthy of mention since it impacts on teachers’ roles and activities in the department and school.

In one study, three types of leadership practices emerged from the findings: strategic, operational and distributive leadership (Maughan, Teeman, & Wilson, 2012). With strategic leadership, they claim, the leadership sets out a clear and realistic vision adapted to the local context of the particular school where teachers are inspired and allowed to take ownership of the change expected in their teaching practices.

Operational leaders refer to the leader’s ability to create a culture and the right climate of change through the provision of periodic learning and sharing opportunities. A third practice, distributed leadership, entails the mutual confidence in sharing of leadership responsibilities across the department and school. I believe that a teacher’s role and leadership could have a significant influence on their appropriation of resources, and that they in turn could act as change drivers for the use of digital and non-digital resources in their teaching practices. In the subsequent chapters (6-8), the specific role(s) of each teacher is discussed.