Output 2: PD Module
The second output of ML2 project will be a Professional Development (PD) module for facilitating mathematics teachers to utilize the potential of multilingualism, through the inclusion of the OERs from Output 1 into teaching situations. The target group for this PD module will be lower secondary mathematics teachers who work in linguistically diverse classrooms. Although effective teaching approaches for the inclusion of multilinguality in mathematics have been developed, their wide implementation is still hindered by a lack of well-developed PD materials which are based on teachers’ expertise for being responsive towards multiple languages. Therefore, a PD module will be co-designed and tested in professional learning communities (PLC) of teachers. In these PLCs, teacher teams from the partner countries work with the OERs in specific PD activities to develop their expertise to include multiple languages into mathematics classrooms and enrich the teaching materials for their local contexts.
With the guidance from the module, participating teachers will be engaged in the PLCs, organized around their own experimentation with the OER in typical cycles of collective inquiry: (a) appropriating the principles and aims of harnessing multiple languages as learning resource, (b) analyzing and adapting the teaching materials for own classroom experimentations, (c) experimenting in the own classrooms, (d) collectively reflecting on the classroom experiences and students’ products. In these cycles of inquiry, teachers experience the benefits and pitfalls of including multiple languages in the mathematics classroom. Through the reflective activities, the teachers will learn to identify classroom incidents that are most appropriate for utilizing multiple languages as resource for learning mathematics.