A key commitment of the Adult Literacy for Life Strategy (2021) is to reduce the number of adults in Ireland with unmet numeracy needs from 25% to 12%. One of the main challenges in achieving this is the varied provision of adult numeracy education. Many numeracy practitioners are either employed parttime or are volunteers with few opportunities…

Teacher identity provides useful insights into the learning and practices of teachers. The complexity of identity, however, makes it difficult to use in empirical research. An analytical framework with two components is presented. This analytical framework comprises a framework for identity as an embedder-of-numeracy, which clearly defines a…

Opportunities for self-determined online professional development (OPD) are emerging, but their potential for increasing adult learners' agency is not yet fully realised. Faced with the problem of successfully designing a self-determined comprehensive evidence-based online numeracy resource for educators who are often time poor and do not engage…

According to the Commitment to Action on Foundational Learning, a global initiative launched at the 2022 Transforming Education Summit, foundational learning refers to "basic literacy, numeracy, and transferable skills such as socio-emotional skills" (World Bank 2023). This holistic vision of learning outcomes aligns with the Global…

An investment in early childhood education pays off when the benefits continue into adulthood. Although many recent preschool interventions have had positive, short-term effects on young children's language, literacy, mathematics, executive function, and social-emotional development, studies show that related gains in cognitive and academic skills…

The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly impacted on schools globally with closures and the implementation of online learning (UNESCO, 2020). This rapid shift has resulted in a significant change to traditional modes of delivery, including classroom teaching and professional learning opportunities for teachers, as well as thinking differently about…

After eighteen months of school closure and disrupted learning, civic leaders, researchers, and educational leaders are getting a clearer picture of how students fared through the pandemic, and what new reality school systems face as they return to in-person schooling in 2021-22. Increases in community infection rates and parent hesitancy have…

The Rhode Island 2020 Vision for Education defines an ideal Rhode Island graduate to be "one who is well prepared for postsecondary education, work, and life. He or she can think critically and collaboratively and can act as a creative, self-motivated, culturally competent learner and citizen." The updated Secondary School Regulations,…

The Teachers First initiative is a grass-roots cluster-model approach for bringing together primary and secondary teachers and school principals: to analyse student performance data; design and practice activities and assessment tools; and promote teaching practices that address students' learning difficulties in mathematics. The balance of both…

The Rhode Island 2020 Vision for Education defines an ideal Rhode Island graduate to be "one who is well prepared for postsecondary education, work, and life. He or she can think critically and collaboratively and can act as a creative, self-motivated, culturally competent learner and citizen." The updated Secondary School Regulations,…

This executive summary accompanies the report, "Multiplying Skills, Adding Value. Numeracy and Mathematics for Scotland's Learners: A Thematic Inspection." The report reviews current practice in numeracy and mathematics. It contains advice and guidance around what is working well, as well as important areas for discussion and further…

This guide is a revised and updated edition of "Making It Count." This version contains much of the information from the earlier publication but also includes strategies for using project-based learning and Web-based instructional programs to support the development of mathematics proficiency for youth in short-term juvenile correctional…

In this article, I report on the first stage of a whole school literacy project," Embedding Literacies in the KLAs" (ELK), which aims to support multilingual learners to access the literacies they need for high stakes curriculum learning. As it is "quality teaching" that has been found to have the greatest impact on student…

In this article, the author looks at some of the aspects of the equals sign. He shares several insights from his colleagues on the meaning of the equals sign. He also discusses how children view "=" as a sign which is written before "the answer," and, in the recording of the many practical activities that form the basis for the…

For over 30 years this author has been involved in the teaching and learning of mathematics and numeracy in Australian schools, teaching in high schools (Years 8-12) for more than 20 years at different school settings ranging from rural and remote to inner city, high socio-economic status schools to schools of students mostly from poorer, lower…