- Teaching to develop skills as well as procedural fluency 

- A  change in the role of the teacher

and the student 

- Continued impact of the exam

- Heavy reliance on tests in the classroom.

This video about the Irish Initiative  Projects Maths was very impressive. As matter of fact this Irish case study would take lots of changes in the development of teachers' competences  and in assessment. 

Previously students were asked yes or no questions, now they have to use their critical and reasoning thinking to solve a mathematical problem. So the Continuous Professional Development ( CPD) focuses on what students misunderstood providing them supporting feedback that will help them to develop mathematical proficiency rather than  that is focusing on right answers. There will be a great change in syllabus, tasks and key skills in classroom supported by PBL approach that is students centered. Students need to be involved in group work, discovery learning, questioning and discussing. I think that teaching to develop mathematical competences through this new approach is a great challenge for all teachers and requires a hard work and a constant updating. I agree with a great investment in improving teachers' competences. But in my opinion, this could be very difficult to implement in all countries and the abandon of traditional approach could require lots of time, too. I hope it could be implemented  in a narrow  future when either the syllabus or teaching strategies will be aligned.

 2) too often teachers view their role as helping students to get through the exam and maximise their grades.(the situation in Italy is the same)

3) students need to become more active learners, getting involved in group-work, discovery learning and questioning and discussing.
4)Therefore there is a need of new skill set and a new set of classroom practices
5)further support is needed to help teachers develop new and trusted ways of assessing focused on improving learning.

6)Italian teachers   need to be given support in the new methodologies: things are changing through the national PNSD
7)investment in CPD is  to be seen as one of the key enablers to the innovation also for  Italy where there is a strong need of intensive school-based support
8)The Irish success in innovating maths teaching and learning demonstrates that real and effective innovation can be achieved  if all parts of the system work very closely together .
9)Improved teacher competence is crucial
10)alignment between syllabus and assessment and final exams is the real challenge now

 

1.    Teachers are often left alone, there’s no support

2.    There too many “old school” teachers that don’t want to change

3.    Teachers often don’t want to collaborate