LSRI: Critiquing research on children's learning of mathematics

Please note this seminar will be at 5pm (not 4pm as per usual). The seminar forms part of the MMES (Midlands Mathematics Education Seminars).

Research in mathematics learning is a diverse field, drawing on a large number of influences and disciplines. This interdisciplinarity seems like a good thing, until we come to try and make sense of questions that are either located at, or cross, disciplinary boundaries. A particularly difficult boundary to work at is that between ‘the individual’ and ‘the group’. A large number of theorists and commentators have between them established a rhetoric of cognitive v. sociocultural, acquisition v. participation and individual v. social. The starting point for this seminar will be a description of some of the difficulties that can be encountered when talking about children's learning of mathematics - focusing in particular on this boundary between individual and group learning.

The rest of the seminar will deal with the question: what happens if we reject the individual/group dichotomy? Can we develop an approach to the research of mathematics learning that is genuinely interdisciplinary? And would this be a useful thing to do?

This is very much a work in progress, and hopefully will stimulate some interesting discussion. Drawing together my own experience in psychology, philosophy, computer science and education, I'm looking forward to the opportunity to discuss the issues in this seminar with an LSRI audience. 

This event will be live streamed via http://www.lsri.nottingham.ac.uk/live/