Aspirations for mathematics learning: the voice of primary mathematics middle leaders
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Aspirations for mathematics learning: the voice of primary mathematics middle leaders Anne Roche 1
& James Russo
1
& Penelope Kalogeropoulos
1
& Colleen Vale
1
Received: 3 July 2020 / Revised: 3 November 2020 / Accepted: 13 November 2020 # Mathematics Education Research Group of Australasia, Inc. 2020
Abstract Little is known about primary school mathematics middle leaders’ aspirations for mathematics learning. We sought to give mathematics middle leaders a voice to articulate their desires for mathematics learning based on what was most salient to them. Statements collected from 149 primary school mathematics middle leaders through an online survey were categorised using an ecological approach to determine the system level (i.e., mathematics middle leader, classroom, school, education system, or cultural norm) in which their aspirations for mathematics learning mostly presided. The mathematics middle leaders’ aspirations were situated across the full range of ecological systems. However, more mathematics middle leaders focused their aspirations within the classroom level, compared with any other level, and around 15% focused on their own knowledge and capacity to lead. Keywords Middle leaders . Vision . Aspirations . Mathematics learning . Ecological
systems
Introduction Middle leaders play an important role in contributing to school improvement (Farchi and Tubin 2019; Harris and Townsend 2007). Grootenboer et al. (2019) highlighted the * Anne Roche [email protected] James Russo [email protected] Penelope Kalogeropoulos [email protected] Colleen Vale [email protected]
1
Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
A. Roche et al.
importance of middle leaders by describing them as “the real drivers of day-to-day educational change in schools” (p. 254) and suggested middle leadership “is an important educational phenomenon worthy of significant future investment for accomplishing site based education development” (p. 254). Over the years, middle leaders in Australian schools who support teachers to improve the teaching and learning of mathematics have been referred to by a variety of terms, including teaching and learning coaches (Anstey and Clarke 2010), numeracy leaders or numeracy coordinators (Cheeseman and Clarke 2005), mathematics leaders (Sexton 2019), and middle leaders (Department of Education and Training [DET] 2017; Grootenboer et al. 2015). Other terms used internationally for similar middle leading positions are teacher leaders (York-Barr and Duke 2004) and instructional coaches (Brown et al. 2017). Grootenboer et al. (2015) defined middle leaders as “those who have an acknowledged position of leadership in their educational institution but also a significant teaching role” (p. 509). Driscoll (2017) used the term school mathematics leaders to convey their role of leading mathematics teaching and learning. The current study merges the definitions of Grootenboer et al. and Driscoll to describe mathematics middle leaders as those who have a classroom teaching role
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