Learning Media - Te Pou Taki Kõrero

Effective Pedagogy in Mathematics/Pāngarau: Best Evidence Synthesis Iteration [BES] is a “must read” for all who have an interest in raising student achievement in mathematics. It investigates what the research literature has to say about effective mathematics education and makes the findings available to a wider audience of teachers and teacher educators.

The authors of this Ministry of Education funded project, Associate Professor Glenda Anthony and Dr. Margaret Walshaw, affirm that there is no single, best approach. Rather than trying to define “best practice”, they concentrate on uncovering and explaining the links between what teachers do and the outcomes for their students. Teachers will find that Anthony and Walshaw’s research can shed new light on what they do every day – and how they might do things differently.

“What is distinctive about the New Zealand approach is its willingness to consider all forms of research evidence regardless of methodological paradigms and ideological rectitude, and its concern in finding ... effective, appropriate, and locally powerful examples of ‘what works’”.

World Education Yearbook (2006) on the Iterative BES Programme

The brief

To edit, design, and publish a substantial academic text so that it retains its integrity and serious purpose but is accessible to teachers and teacher educators.

Our solution

The audience for this BES was always going to be those concerned enough about mathematics teaching to commit time and effort to reading. For this reason, it was agreed that we would not attempt to “popularise” the document. Rather, we would remove unnecessary blocks to understanding by focusing on the clarity of language and the transparency of structure.

The Ministry of Education required a cost-effective design that would help readers to navigate and interpret the content. The decision was made to print in black and one colour. We used this colour primarily to draw attention to the many vignettes that illustrate ideas at work in actual teaching contexts.

The result is a publication that looks like a work of scholarship at the same time as it draws the reader into accounts of everyday situations that teachers will instantly recognise. The wire binding reinforces the message that this is a book to be used, not a report to sit on a shelf.

Effective Pedagogy in Mathematics/Pāngarau is also available online at the Education Counts website.