The project forms a partnership between the University of South-Eastern Norway (USN), Western Norway University of Applied Sciences (HVL) and University of the Western Cape (UWC, South Africa) in the field of mathematics education, and it involves teacher education students at different levels and mathematics teacher educators. It is financially supported through the Utforsk programme of the Norwegian Directorate for Higher Education and Competence (HK-dir).
The project is based at the Institute for Mathematics and Natural Sciences in Drammen (USN), the Institute for Language, Literature, Mathematics and Sign language in Bergen (HVL) and the School of Science and Mathematics Education in Cape Town (UWC).
Mathematics education colleagues with different expertise from the three universities will together design research-based toolkits on teaching mathematics for socially relevant topics such as sustainable development and productive practice, responding to both the new mathematics curriculum in Norway and to the needs for South African students to cope with mathematics as a gatekeeper for completing schooling.
The data collected from the students’ work with the toolkits and the teacher educators’ collaboration, will be used for joint publications focusing on students’ and teachers’ engagement with the toolkits, as well as on matters of designing toolkits and implementing them with students from different countries and cultural backgrounds. All the participants share common interests and previous research work in critical mathematics education, which we aim to develop further.
Another main focus of the collaboration is the facilitation of student exchange in the respective institutions, both short term (master and PhD students) and long term (bachelor students). The short-term exchange will aim for students to be part of the international research group, and inviting them to write their master theses within the project.
In addition, colleagues will be giving guest lectures for the partner institutions during their exchange periods. Blended mobility starts is included, and master students from USN and UWC will follow the same existing course in mathematics education at USN. These activities will add international perspectives to mathematics teacher education programmes at our institutions.
