This paper reports on a project funded by the Scottish Government (2010-12) with the aim of promoting the development of mathematical thinking in the primary classroom. The project has involved the collaborative development with teachers and education support staff from neighbouring local authorities of a Masters level Continuing Professional Development (CPD) course on this theme involving a technology enhanced blended learning approach. This development has taken place within the context of a national curriculum reform in Scotland ‘Curriculum for Excellence’ that was informed by an OECD review of national policy for education in Scotland (OECD, 2007) as part of a wider review of national policies at an international level (Scottish Executive Education Department, 2007). A project and work-based approach to learning underpins the course of study which is designed to support a process of classroom based action research. The course has been piloted during the autumn term 2011 with a group of 24 practising primary teachers.

The project is set against a background in which, despite past initiatives to improve the teaching and learning of mathematics, most mathematics lessons in Scotlandstill tend to feature some form of teacher-led demonstration followed by children practising skills and procedures from a commercially produced scheme (Scottish Executive Education Department, 2005).  These findings were confirmed by TIMSS (IEA, 2008) which found that 72% of both P5 and S2 pupils were taught using a textbook as the primary resource compared to the international average of 65% and 60% respectively.  The most recent Scottish Survey of Achievement (SSA) (Scottish Government, 2009) also reported that pupils using textbooks and working quietly on their own was the most common form of activity in mathematics classes in Scotland. This background context points towards the importance of sound subject knowledge and also of teacher confidence that is associated with this as reported on in Henderson and Rodrigues (2008). Furthermore it raises questions about the nature of mathematics and highlights the importance both of teachers’ beliefs and the affective dimension for student learning as discussed in Henderson and Hudson (2011).

The project as a whole has been set up within a didactical design research framework (Hudson, 2011) which aims to address the ways in which we might systematically create, test, evaluate and disseminate teaching and learning interventions that will have maximum impact on practice and that will contribute significantly to the development of theory about teaching and learning. Accordingly the key research questions addressed in this paper are:

1. What are the teachers’ perceptions concerning their levels of confidence and competence in relation to teaching mathematics?
2. What are the teachers’ perceptions concerning their attitudes and beliefs in relation to mathematics as a subject?
3. What are the teachers’ expectations of the impact on pupil learning arising from this course of study?
4. How do these perceptions and expectations change as a result of participating in this course of study?

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