The first enGasia meeting in Nagano, Japan

At the end of March the first project meeting in Nagano, Japan will take place. There are three research phases in the methodology for this project:

1. Identifying the challenges to be resolved by ICT by getting a clear picture of the contextual factors in the three participating countries.
2. Designing two interactive 20 page electronic textbooks on mutually agreed topic of 2D geometry for 12-16 yr olds toward addressing these challenges,
3. Examining the effect of the electronic textbooks by implementing the digital resources in one HK, JP and ENG classroom per annum. The methodology will consist of a combination of: (i) lesson observations along the lines of the TIMSS 1999 video study and Lesson Study (Stigler & Hiebert, 1999) and (ii) a quasi-experimental approach.

This meeting will unpick the first aim. The sessions will focus on knowledge exchange and discussing geometry teaching in the participating countries. Another focus will be formulating the desired characteristics of the electronic books. What follows from this meeting feeds into a period of developing the first version of our digital resources, and will include some existing software resources for geometry. Funds are available for translation and programming purposes.

In preparation participants are asked to prepare several resources for the first day of the meeting. The ‘results’ of the first day serve as materials/source for blog posts and eventually a publication as well. Three key topics are central for this first meeting.

• A description of the maths curriculum in the three countries, with focus on geometry.
• A description of prevalent teaching methods in the three countries, particularly for geometry.
• The role of ICT in maths education in the three countries, with an emphasis on geometry. A case example of actual ICT use for geometry.

In addition to this we prepare two or three additional sessions: one on what large-scale assessments say about geometry education in the three countries, and some other interesting ICT and geometry that is not particularly connected to a certain country. This all then feeds nicely into the design phase.

Over the days the following presentations have been given (links will be added, for detailed meeting document see here):

Introduction to the enGasia project
Geometry in the English secondary curriculum
Geometry in the Hong Kong secondary curriculum
Geometry in the Japanese secondary curriculum
Geometry education practices in England
Geometry education practices in Hong Kong
Geometry education practices in Japan
Technology use for maths/geometry in England
Technology use for maths/geometry in Hong Kong
Technology use for maths/geometry in Japan
International assessments on geometry education
Wider technology use for geometry