Professor Gabriele Kaiser
(Australian Catholic University, Institute for Learning Sciences and Teacher Education / University of Hamburg, Faculty of Education)

Research on teacher noticing in the field of mathematics education research has increased in the last decade; however, only a few studies have investigated the social and cultural impact on teachers’ noticing. In the talk results of a comparative study on (in-service) mathematics teachers’ professional noticing in China and Germany, representing Eastern and Western cultures, will be presented. Chinese and German mathematics teachers participated in a video-based assessment of their professional noticing, i.e. perception, interpretation, and decision-making competencies. Findings of the study revealed amongst others that German teachers performed significantly better than Chinese teachers on noticing aspects related to general pedagogy; in contrast, Chinese teachers outperformed their German counterparts on noticing aspects connected to mathematics instruction. These findings suggest that societal and cultural factors, such as different philosophical paradigms, traditions of teacher education, and teaching and mathematics curriculum traditions are main influencing factors on teachers’ professional noticing.

Presenter Bio

Professor Gabriele Kaiser holds a master’s degree as a teacher for mathematics and humanities for lower and upper secondary level, which she completed at the University of Kassel in 1978 with the first state degree. After having worked in schools and completion of the second state degree, she worked as a scientific assistant at the Department of Mathematics at the University of Kassel, where she completed her doctorate in mathematics education (rer. nat.) in 1986 with a study on applications and modelling supervised by Werner Blum and Arnold Kirsch. Based on a grant for Postdoctoral Research by the German Research Society (DFG) she undertook her post-doctoral study in pedagogy on international comparative studies at the University of Kassel, which she completed in 1997. From 1996-1998 she held a guest professorship at the University of Potsdam. Since 1998, Gabriele has been a full professor for mathematics education at the Faculty of Education of the University of Hamburg. Her areas of research include modelling and applications in school, international comparative studies, gender and cultural aspects in mathematics education and empirical research on teacher education.

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