Numeracy Teaching and Learning

Just back from a short trip to Ireland – and maybe I’ve had numeracy on the brain because I was so constantly challenged there in converting Euros to Canadian Dollars and back again – how much is that cup of coffee!! I made extensive use of my trusty calculator and had to confront my math anxiety on an almost daily basis – so when I got home I was very happy to find that there is some amazing work going on around numeracy, how we teach and learn, feel and think about numeracy…

The latest issue of Focus on Basics focuses on Numeracy in adult basic  education and provides an intriguing array of articles by adult numeracy instructors and researchers including Teachers Investigating Adult Numeracy (TIAN) – a research  and professional development project involving 40 instructors in Massachussets and Ohio – and an article by Kate Nonesuch of Malaspina University College in Duncan B.C. describing her own learning journey as a numeracy instructor  and how she works to honour and respect student resistance to new ways of learning as she reflects upon, learns about and adjusts her instructional strategies. These are just a couple of the astonishingly rich articles in this issue of Focus on Basics

You may also want to explore or re-explore the Literacies (Spring 2005) issue on reflective practice in numeracy that offers a similarly rich array of articles on numeracy teaching and learning in Canada

Beyond Work Sheets: A Social and Holistic Approach to Numeracy  written by Tom Ciancone, Flora Hood and Joy Lehmann – adult numeracy and literacy instructors here in Toronto, is another essential resource for numeracy instructors  and provides a thought -provoking examination of numeracy as social practice – skill development in the context of and in response to the learner’s social environment and numeracy through holistic learning, taking the whole person, mind, body and spirit into account.