NCETM Survey - Our response to your feedback
At the launch of the National Centre for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics (NCETM) on 27th June 2006, a survey was launched to explore the views of users of the web portal on what the NCETM should offer to teachers in terms of CPD, web resources and networking.Responses are from members of the NCETM community through the web portal. The following is a brief summary of the results of this survey. You can also choose to read the full survey report and responses.
We asked you to select the type of events you would like to see the NCETM organise.
The national centre should arrange regular workshops, regional information sharing forums, local information sharing forums and local workshops.
There is clearly an expectation that the NCETM will provide a number of regional and local events. This is a key part of the NCETM strategy and as the regional co-ordinators begin work in their regions, they are encouraged to organise these sorts of events. A key aspect of these events will be input from local teachers.
We asked you to suggest how the NCETM could help to meet your personal CPD needs.
The national centre could provide the following:
- Networking opportunities such as on-line forums, message boards and group meetings in order to facilitate communication and collaboration.
- Information about CPD opportunities and courses, examples of good practice, subject information, research output and information about DfES initiatives.
- Good, proven, quality resources for a range of activities and learner groups.
- Training and advice for mathematics focused classroom skills, in the use of ICT across the subject and for those teaching special needs and gifted pupils.
- Help with teaching strategies, learning theory, creativity and reflective practice.
- Influence policy at both government and local levels.
The NCETM are encouraging many of these suggestions through the web portal, for example the forums and communities are already in place to facilitate networking and sharing of ideas. There are links to a number of resources on the NCETM web portal. It is important to recognise that the web portal will primarily contain resources that will encourage professional development. The portal is not intended to become a repository for teaching resources, unless these are produced in such a way that encourages teachers to reflect and develop their practice. There will be links to other sites which contain many excellent teaching resources. The NCETM itself will not become a major provider of professional development, but will help teachers to access resources and information that they need.
The NCETM web portal work includes developing a professional development framework and a directory of professional development opportunities. Once in place this will help teachers to identify their needs and enable them to meet their individual professional development needs. This process will also provide information on what is available and needs which are not being met. This information can be used to inform future provision and hopefully government policy.
We asked you to select the type of content you would like to see on the NCETM web portal.
You rated our suggested features in the following order:
- Guidance on how to help learners in mathematics
- Teaching resources
- Information about professional development opportunities
- Professional development material
- Contact details for mathematics organisations
- Glossary of mathematical terms with application areas
The NCETM will be working to specifically address the first two choices shown in the diagram which relate directly to professional development. The research strand will be focusing on effective professional development, but will also be working to enable teachers to make use of research findings in their work and publishing this through the web portal. The NCETM web portal will be linking to web sites that provide quality teaching resources, rather than creating another repository.
We asked you what else you want from the NCETM Web Portal.
- Information about policy and initiatives
- Sharing of ideas, innovation and good practice
- Resources
- Networking/forums
- Research findings and opportunities to participate in research
- Improving teaching skills
- Accessibility of the NCETM website
The web portal will develop with time and the comments made here will make a useful input to the development work. It is expected that, as the web portal develops, sharing good practice and innovative ideas will be very important, as well as keeping teachers up to date with news and details of new initiatives. Also as the research strand of the NCETM develops there will be many reports and opportunities which can be included on the web portal.
We asked you what the mathematics community should get from the NCETM web portal.
- A forum for sharing ideas and good practice
- A one-stop-shop for resources, up-to-date information and educational research for maths teachers of all age groups and abilities
- That the website should become the principal source of information, gaining the respect of the maths teaching community and promoting the community to others
- To help to develop a common understanding of policy and good practice
- To make maths fun
It is hoped that the NCETM web portal will become a place to which teachers can come to find many different things and a source of up to date information. The news section is a good example of how teachers can be directed to important reports and news items without having to search through other web sites to find them. The fact that the NCETM web portal will never be static, but always developing, will assist teachers by always being up to date and containing all the links that teachers will need. The forums and communities are always open for contributions and can be used for teachers to communicate needs that they have which are not being met by the web portal.
The responses to the questions have a number of common threads which suggest that many member of the mathematics teaching community want the same things from the NCETM web portal.
These are:
- Properly catalogued high quality resources or links to sources of such resources with some critical appraisal of their usefulness in context. The relationship between these resources and the curriculum.
- An on-line community with the purpose of sharing ideas, innovation, good practice and information about maths teaching and policy issues.
- A central source of current information about government policy and initiatives, research findings and learning theory.
- A directory of CPD courses and resources.
The NCETM shares this desire, but also sees that teachers will have a key role in helping the web portal to develop in this way. The NCETM looks forward to and values the contribution that practicing teachers can make to establish the NCETM community, via the NCETM web portal.