Abstract:

Design Research approaches are increasingly being used in education to examine the development and evolution over time of new curriculum resources and teaching approaches. The development of the teaching model associated with the New Zealand Numeracy Development Projects (NDP) is presented here and examined against a Design Research framework.

The NDP was a major government initiative (2000-2010) to improve numeracy (number and number sense) teaching and learning with three key elements: a content knowledge framework; a strategy framework, and a teaching model. The initiative was implemented nationally, but delivered regionally and thus with ‘local’ interpretation, with the intention that all teachers of mathematics for children aged five to 14 years would be involved over time. The associated ‘whole school’ professional development started with teachers of five to seven years old and moved to the teachers of older age groups later. While building on existing research (and overseas implementations), these three key elements moved beyond the research base with a primary focus on providing useful and user-friendly material and teaching approaches for classroom teachers of children from five to 14 years of age. Given the time period over which the initiative operated, the evolution of the initially prepared materials and further development of resources was to be expected. In this respect, the purpose was more closely aligned with engineering where a workable resolution is required rather than one that is necessarily theoretically proven or formally researched prior to use.

Within engineering, a Design Research approach allows for iterative cycles of design: identifying and researching a problem situation; designing and producing an artefact; testing, and redesigning to address any identified ‘shortcomings’ in the artefact. The artefact examined here is a teaching model to support teachers in their teaching of numeracy using NDP materials (the frameworks and supporting resources) and NDP teaching approaches (the teaching model).

The need for a teaching model was identified from a variety of professional development projects which preceded NDP (and were the basis for it) while the research literature gave a theoretical underpinning. The theory was then turned into a teaching model that teachers would hopefully be able to understand and use in their classrooms. This teaching model was promoted nationally within the NDP initiative materials and the regional professional development delivery teams. Feedback from classroom teachers, delivery teams and classroom observations identified shortcomings and modifications were made on the basis of its use (testing) in classrooms.

The development of the teaching model, initially informed by research literature, with multiple forms of ongoing feedback from practitioners, and a clear intent to make it workable for teachers, was a responsive and organic process. Thus, the teaching model does not always appear to have been the result of research or been researched overall (as is also the case with aspects of the NDP knowledge and strategy frameworks). However, examination of the teaching model’s initial development indicate that it was the result of a Design Research process albeit an informal one.

Keywords:

Design research, teaching model, mathematics.