The Mathematics Teacher Exchange and ‘Mastery’ in England: The Evidence for the Efficacy of Component Practices

Abstract

‘Mastery’ is central to current policy in mathematics education in England, influenced by East Asian success in transnational assessments. We scrutinise the prospects for mastery pedagogies to improve pupil attainment in English primary schools. The Mathematics Teacher Exchange (MTE)—an element of the mastery innovation—involves teachers visiting Shanghai and then hosting Shanghai teachers in their schools. Informed by programme evaluation, core component practices are analysed, which were implemented by schools belonging to the first cohort of MTE schools. These consist of: varied and interactive teaching; meaningful and coherent mathematical activity; and full curriculum access for all. These elements are supported, optimally, by collaborative, embedded, and mathematically focused professional development. Details of the implemented pedagogy and forms of professional development are reported. Differences from prevailing practice in primary mathematics in England are highlighted. Evidence is reviewed from quasi-experimental trials, reviews and meta-analyses, and rigorous observational studies of the efficacy of practices similar to the MTE mastery pedagogy components in order to assess the prospects for increases in pupil attainment. The analysis suggests that many of the specific practices, if considered individually, have the potential to improve attainment, though overall policy ambitions may not be realised. Based on the review, component practices are identified for which existing evidence justifies immediate implementation by schools and teachers. In addition, practices that would benefit from further testing and evaluation are highlighted.

Regulated time and expansive time in primary school mathematics

“…A notable difference, and one pointed to by teachers, between, for example, Shanghai primary mathematics pedagogy and English practice relates to the amount of content addressed in a single lesson. Teachers adopting mastery approaches report a slowing down of the speed at which the curriculum is taught (Boylan et al 2019). However, "teaching for mastery" continues to emphasise progressing through the curriculum in a predetermined way, albeit more slowly (and ideally together and with greater depth than common English primary mathematics education practice).…”

“…The idea of pace has been a key influence on primary mathematics education and continues to be so in spite of the discontinuation of the National Strategies organisational framework and recent moves to adopt a "mastery" approach to learning (Boylan et al 2019). Until very recently, the inspection regime in England focused not only on monitoring progress over time but on observing progress in single lessons (Ofsted 2015), often a twenty minute episode within a lesson, thus influencing school leaders' and teachers' beliefs about what is desirable -and therefore what is desired.…”

Developing Children’s Computational Thinking using Programming Games

“…This has proven difficult, in part due to the wide range of different assessments available. Study 1 (Chapter 4) showed no difference between a programming game and phonics activities on story sequencing ability, supporting the results of much larger studies measuring CT improvements after a Scratch curriculum (Straw et al, 2017) and mathematics improvements after a Scratch curriculum (with CT as a secondary measure) (Boylan et al, 2018).…”

“…Examples include the Bebras Computing Challenge (Dagiene & Futschek, 2008) and the Computational Thinking Pattern Quiz (Basawapatna et al, 2011). Bebras has been used recently as a measure of CT in two large educational studies (Boylan et al, 2018;Straw et al, 2017), so will be discussed in more detail.…”

“…However, a much larger study by the National Foundation for Education Research found that a year-long programming intervention using Scratch did not affect the CT ability (measured using Bebras (Section 3.3.2)) of 317 children age 9 to 11 (Straw et al, 2017). Furthermore, Boylan et al (2018) found that mathematics outcomes of 5,818 children age 9 to 11 did not improve after a year (or two years in some cases)…”