A research-informed mathematics teacher training video by Dr. Natthapoj Vincent Trakulphadetkrai‘s MathsThroughStories.org initiative has been released. The video showcases how a Year 6 teacher at Redlands Primary School (a local partnership school in Reading) uses a story book called ‘Holes’ by Louis Sachar as a basis for her Mathematics lesson on volume and mass. The making of the video was funded by the University of Reading’s Endowment Fund.
From his on-going international survey study, Dr. Trakulphadetkrai has found that most primary teachers in different countries are not aware of the possibility of enriching mathematics teaching through storytelling. A common misconception is that this teaching approach is something that can only be found at the pre-school level. To address this misconception and to support teachers to change their perception and teaching practice, Dr. Trakulphadetkrai has been working with teachers in different countries to produce supporting materials, such as story-inspired mathematics lesson ideas. This new training video adds to the richness of the available resource on his project’s website.
Dr. Trakulphadetkrai comments that “I want to engage practitioners at all stages of my research, including the impact-generating stage. I heavily rely on the support from these teachers to help producing these wonderful (and free) on-line supporting and training materials for teachers worldwide, and for that I am grateful for their support.”
The MathsThroughStories.org website was launched in March 2017, and it has now been visited more than 300,000 times by over 70,000 teachers and parents from almost 190 countries globally. For this project, Dr. Trakulphadetkrai was chosen to be a finalist of the University of Reading’s 2019 Research Engagement and Impact Awards.
