Teachers’ reflecting on professional knowledge in the numeracy (mathematics) classroom

Abstract

New Zealand primary school teachers are expected to regularly reflect on their teaching practice in order to consider the implications of past teaching on future planning. Aligned to teachers’ ongoing reflection, the New Zealand Curriculum (Ministry of Education, 2007) contains a section on effective pedagogy—teacher actions promoting student learning, which includes a Teaching as Inquiry Cycle (pp. 34–35). Embedded within their inquiry, teachers consider the teaching-learning relationship and often turn to frameworks of knowledge for guidance. This article shares the implications of using a framework of teacher knowledge in research. While the framework used contained much detail for the researcher, it overlapped categories and at the same time lacked acknowledgement of some important concepts for teachers in classroom practice. Findings from using a framework in this research were combined with findings from previous research to formulate the Wheel of Professional Knowledge, which was developed for mathematics teachers to use when reflecting on their practice.