The MathsThroughStories.org website, developed by Dr. Natthapoj Vincent Trakulphadetkrai (Associate Professor of Mathematics Education, University of Reading), has reached a new milestone. Launched in 2017, the website has now been visited over 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 website encourages teachers and parents globally to integrate storytelling as part of their mathematics teaching. The website offers a wide range of free on-line resources e.g., the world’s largest database of recommendations for mathematical stories (500+); reviews of mathematical stories (100+), lesson ideas as contributed by teachers from different countries, exclusive interviews with some of the world’s leading mathematical story authors, among other resources.
The development of the website has been informed by research findings from an international survey study that Dr. Trakulphadetkrai leads and collaborates on with academic colleagues in different countries to investigate the extent to which teachers integrate children’s literature in their mathematics teaching as well as their perceived barriers to and enablers for such integration. The project’s first paper, second paper, and third paper focus on reporting data collected from Irish teachers, Maltese teachers and Australian teachers respectively. The fourth paper is currently in press, and reports findings collected from Taiwanese teachers. The fifth paper will be the biggest study in the series and will report findings from English teachers. Altogether, the five papers collected survey data from over 1,700 teachers across the five countries.
In January 2020, a new guidance report by the UK’s Education Endowment Foundation (EEF), an independent charity sets out to improve the educational attainment of the poorest pupils in English schools, recommends MathsThroughStories.org as a go-to resource for teachers looking for ideas on how to enhance their mathematics teaching through storytelling. During the pandemic, schools throughout the UK also recommended the website to parents to support their children’s mathematics learning at home.
“I am thrilled that the MathsThroughStories.org website has reached this incredible milestone. I love seeing teachers recommending my website to fellow teachers and parents on social media. I love seeing teachers tweeting photos of them using story picture books in their maths lessons as they had been so inspired by the website. I love seeing how the development of the website is informed by research findings of my international survey study and how the website helps teachers internationally change their mathematics teaching practice.”, Dr. Trakulphadetkrai commented.
MathsThroughStories.org can be found on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
To learn more about Dr. Trakulphadetkrai’s research interests, click here. He tweets at @NatthapojVinceT.
You can watch him talking about the MathsThroughStories.org website by clicking on the image below.
