Mathematics Teachers’ Appropriation of Digital and Non-Digital Resources and its Impact on Classroom Practices

Mathematics teachers’ appropriation of digital and non-digital resources for professional practices have become a research focus over the last decade. The aim of this doctoral research is to explore how mathematics teachers in English secondary schools access, adapt, create and use resources in-class and out-of-class, individually and collectively, from the practitioners’ perspectives. This research also examines the genesis of a community of practice from teachers’ collective work.

A qualitative case study approach and thematic data analysis were used. Data were collected through interviews, observations using the Systematic Classroom Analysis Notation (SCAN), screen capture and document collation. Seven teachers were purposively selected from three schools in England in which there exists a culture of resource use. Activity theoretic and ‘documentational’ approaches are frameworks used in exploring and discussing teachers’ resource use and its impact on classroom practices.

The findings highlight the importance of digital and non-digital resources in teaching mathematics in England. They suggest that the widespread use of schemes of work, amongst other features, in England predisposes teachers to appropriate and use a variety of resources. The findings reveal that teachers undertake a range of formative assessments (FA) as an integral part of their teaching practices. The use of digital resources and the teachers’ resources system enables these FA practices in a variety of ways. The research also indicates that mathematics teachers’ collectives exist in different forms. Indeed, teachers’ collective participation occurs in a complex intersection of various loosely or tightly connected virtual and/or face-to-face networks with the potential to emerge into a mathematics teacher community of practice. The research found that teachers adopt the concepts of variation and differentiation and enact these ideas in distinctive ways.

This research has the potential to contribute to the discourse on mathematics teachers’ work with resources from an English perspective. It also offers insights and recommendations that could benefit teachers’ professional practices.