CV & Biography

I hold the FRF Chair of Mathematics Education at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg South Africa, and the Chair of Mathematics Education at Kings College, London. I am a member of the Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf) and Chairperson of the ASSAf Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Education Committee.

I have three inter-related research interests: Professional development of mathematics teachers; the mathematical work of teaching; and teaching mathematics in multilingual classrooms .

The research on teaching mathematics in multilingual classrooms began in 1991, and was the subject of my PhD dissertation, and has been published as a book. Between 1996 and 1999, I directed a larger, long term, inter-disciplinary and collaborative project that tracked the learning of mathematics, science and English language teachers enrolled in a formalised in-service professional development programme. We tracked 25 teachers over three years in order to describe and explain their 'take-up'  from various aspects of the development programme, and included a focus on 'take-up'  of language practices like code-switching. This too led to a book that reports on the breadth and depth of the project. These two projects, situated as they were in a transforming educational sector in South Africa, coupled with growing practical knowledge across diverse contexts led to an understanding that the mathematical work of teaching remains under-described, thwarting attempts to improve teaching through strategic teacher education programmes. A focus in my current work is geared to enabling this description, and involves studying the production of mathematics for teaching in sites of mathematics teacher education practice, as well as studying mathematics teaching practices (and so the mathematical work this entails) across diverse contexts of teaching in South Africa, Southern Africa and more recently in the United Kingdom.

In 2009 I was awarded an FRF Chair in Mathematics Education, together with funding for a five year research and development project located in 10 secondary schools. The project has a professional development arm and related research projects, all geared towards improving the quality of teaching and learning mathematics in these schools, and through this, learners participation and performance in mathematics.

My interests in teaching and research in mathematics education have been supplemented by organisational work at national and international level. In the early 1990s I held an executive position in the Southern African Mathematics and Science Research Association. Between 1994 and 1998 I was on the International Committee for PME. I served as Vice President of ICMI from 2002 - 2009. I also serve on the editorial boards of a number of international journals in mathematics education.

More information on teaching, research and organisational activity can be found in my CV.

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