Evaluating the Thinking Maths program for building the capacity of middle-school mathematics teachers

The Thinking Maths program has been developed by the South Australian Department of Education and Child Development (SA DECD), based on its Teaching for Effective Learning Framework. The program aims to address a significant drop in mathematics performance in NAPLAN from Year 7 to Year 9. The program supports Year 6-9 teachers in the deep learning of mathematical content as outlined in the Australian Curriculum Mathematics. In particular, the project focuses on quality task design, sequencing of conceptual development, and research-informed effective pedagogies. It involves five days of teacher professional learning (workshops), run over 6 months, by facilitators who model rigorous teaching and learning processes, undertaking tasks with multiple entry and exit points to differentiate the curriculum to cater for students with a wide range of mathematical experience and dispositions. The full-day, face-to-face workshops are delivered by two expert facilitators to groups of approximately 30 Years 6-9 mathematics teachers. The facilitators, who administer the intervention, are DECD personnel and the original developers of the intervention. The topics covered on each day have a content focus and a pedagogical focus: Day 1 - Patterns and Generalisation & Differentiating Learning; Day 2 - Space and Measurement & Effective Questioning; Day 3 – Geometry & Active and Collaborative Learning; Day 4 – Statistics & Personalising and Connecting Learning; Day 5 - Location, Directed Number and Geometry & Teaching for Understanding. Between each of the five workshops (periods of 4-5 weeks), teachers make a commitment to implement high-gain strategies to improve student achievement and engagement. Between sessions, telephone, email and online platforms support teachers’ improvement efforts in a professional learning community. There is an expectation that teachers access support and the online professional community of practice, however, it is at their discretion. The Thinking Maths facilitators are proactive and reach-out if teachers are slow to engage. The facilitators monitored adherence to the intervention on several levels. Workshop attendance is closely monitored and if a participant cant make a particular day, they are encouraged to attend a parallel session on another day or send a colleague. Between workshops, they correspond regularly and work closely with participants to provide support, advice and to value-add to the workshop learnings. The study staff monitored adherence to the intervention through the completion of Workshop feedback forms, which included questions about how teachers were implementing strategies back in their classroom. The evaluation timeline spans a year, commencing with the mandated completion of a state-wide student mathematics test (PAT Maths) in September the previous year. Once schools, teachers and their respective maths classrooms have been recruited, student’s mathematics achievement (primary outcome) will be retrospectively provided by DECD to the study team. The intervention commences in Term 1 (pre-surveys administered; schools randomised to control/treatment; PL workshops commence) and finishes in September Term 3, two-weeks after the last PL workshop (post-surveys administered; PAT Maths administered). Given that a decline in mathematics performance is also evident in Australian students’ results more widely, the findings from this trial may be of interest to other Australian practitioners and policy makers. To date, there has been no rigorous evaluation of the impact this intervention has on student achievement in mathematics.