Dr. Natthapoj Vincent Trakulphadetkrai (Associate Professor of Mathematics Education, University of Reading) gave an invited on-line talk on teaching mathematics through storytelling to around 100 teacher trainees at Brooklyn College, the City University of New York on 5th August 2021.

During the talk, participants learned about the different types of mathematical story picture books and how they can be integrated into mathematics teaching and learning. They also learned how teaching mathematics using story picture books can be a pedagogically powerful strategy and explored its underpinning theories. Based on Dr. Trakulphadetkrai’s on-going research, participants learned how asking students to create mini mathematical story picture books could help them develop their mathematical understanding. Finally, participants were shown how they could continue to receive (free) CPD support through Dr. Trakulphadetkrai’s MathsThroughStories.org website and how they can be part of the initiative.

Since joining the University of Reading in 2013, Dr. Trakulphadetkrai has delivered his Maths Through Stories training workshops and talks to over 1,200 in-service teachers and more than 2,000 pre-service teachers across the UK and abroad.

The MathsThroughStories.org website was launched in 2017 as an on-line platform to encourage educators to integrate storytelling as part of their mathematics teaching and learning. The website offers a wide range of free on-line resources e.g., the world’s largest database of recommendations for mathematical stories; book reviews, lesson ideas, exclusive interviews with some of the world’s leading mathematical story authors, etc. To date, the website has been visited almost a million times by over a quarter of a million teachers and parents from over 210 countries. (Click here for the Google Analytics report)

The host, Dr. Xia Li (Associate Professor of Early Childhood Education, Brooklyn College), commented that: “Dr. Trakulphadetkrai’s invited talk at Brooklyn College is a huge success! His talk is incredibly informative and inspiring. Both my students and I have learned a great deal about teaching math through storytelling. His MathsThroughStories.org website is also impressively resourceful! I especially like its Recommendations section – very handy that mathematical story picture books are organized by topics and have suggested ages.”

One of the trainees at his talk commented that “Dr. Natthapoj was a fabulous guest! Very engaging, and I loved that he shared actual resources for us to take advantage of. It was very helpful!”, while another noted that “This was very inspiring for me because the resources shared are so helpful. I am a lot more open now to using storytelling when teaching math to children.”

 

To learn more about Dr. Trakulphadetkrai’s research interests, click here. He tweets at @NatthapojVinceT. You can watch a video of him briefly talking about his MathsThroughStories.org website by clicking on the image below.