Institutional Setting and Its Influence on the Teaching of Mathematics: Implications to Implementing Reform Vision in Mathematics Education in Ethiopian Schools

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript is well organised, has some very important issues about the improvement of teaching mathematics. It’s very complex topic and it is not easy to solve. There are many issues addressed in you results: different achievers, big classes, teachers’ opinions about students’ abilities, textbooks, the role of different groups… To my opinion the teachers are in a very difficult position and I cannot support the idea to be very critical about their work. What do you think? In my county people are complaining about having more than 23 students in a class… I believe this is a big issue when thinking about changing the way of teaching mathematics. And as you will see, I do support every day more present idea that shifting from ‘old’ to ‘new’ way of teaching just because this is somehow ‘in’ nowadays does not work in a long term. Mathematics is many things: it is about learning procedures, memorising, knowing concepts, problem solving, communicating about ideas, using materials in an appropriate way… In the continuation there are my comments to your manuscript.

I believe that such statements "These shifts demand that mathematics teachers change their teaching paradigm from a teacher-cantered 30 approach to an activity-based and student-cantered approach. Globally, such kinds of 31 changes are complex and demanding for teachers." are sending the message of polarization 'traditional - modern/activity based/student-centred' and to my opinion this is wrong. Mathematics is not only about activity and student-centred learning, but it is also about explaining, lecturing... It must be combination of different aspects/theories of mathematics teaching and learning. So, my comment is: consider what is valued in each approach and what each approach is missing.

- you use abbreviation PD before you introduce the meaning

line 137: at 3) start with small letter (not capital)

line 148 please explain what do you mean by 'contextual factors for teacher development'

line 207 and next 5 lines: I believe that is much more to this, not only 'organising...' and 'making...' Please explain how did you decide to consider only these two element. I believe that there must be a reason

lines 225-225: communities of practice (why don't you have this in italic?)

line 238: please explain Figure 1 more in details

How Figure 1 relates to your research? Please explain. 

In Table 1 the data for two teachers is missing

Line 283: please explain 1st step more in details

Line 326: I believe that the reference is not correct/missing?

In line 341 you speak about teachers' community, in line 345 about teachers' group (to my opinion this is not the same)

We need a more detailed information how did you get to that conclusion: "The interview data and the document review resulted in three CoPs that are being configured and influenced the teaching and learning 339 of mathematics. These are: the mathematics teachers’ community, school leadership com-340 munity, and the district level experts’ community." (section 5, lines 338 to 341)

If you do not tell what is the topic of teaching, then the sentence "However, from classroom observation, their teaching methods predominantly focused on students’ acquisition and application of procedures for operating on mathematical symbols and learning the definitions for mathematical terms" could be misleading. I believe that mathematics is also about teaching procedures and definitions. (line 354 to 357)

By the way: do we know the age of the students involved?

To my opinion that kind of teaching to 50 students is just fine: "Almost invariably, the teachers demonstrated the procedure for solving a particular type of problem step-by-step and then assigned similar problems for the students to solve. Their assessments of students’ reasoning were limited to the correctness of answers based on a few students' responses. The adjustments they made when students did not produce correct answers typically involved explaining the procedure for a second time or asking students to check whether they had performed the steps correctly. Because the class size is large (above 50 students), most students did not even get the chance to show their answers to the teacher." (lines 357 - 364)

Regarding empirical part: the research questions or aims must be clear, the date should be presented in a more organised way (separate examples, quotes and findings), discussion should also answer the research question or aims. What is a scientific contribution of your paper? Why is it relevant? Yes, I believe it is relevant for your country for making improvements, but it must be relevant also for the others. Maybe the way you tackle the problem, the question you posed, the interviews? I have to add the topic of your research is very complex - to discuss issues of three different CoP groups is very big idea and I believe you cannot do it in one research paper. You might have also in the title that this is about a case study (one school) and that you present the way you can do research in the area of your research problem. So, the way of researching could be beside the findings the added value of your paper. I would like to know more about the methodology of your research - it is not presented well. Just giving an example from the lesson plan does not tell much. Analysis of different interviews, documents... must be more detailed, probably with coding, making categories... And relate please your research findings to others in this area.

At the end: I believe that this kind of research is very important and can bring some changes, but to have beside practical value also scientific one must be improved.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

This paper is a case study that identifies three communities of practice (CoP) and their interrelationships in such a way that they shape the institutional setting in which Mathematics is taught in a district in Ethiopia.

The aim of the paper is to study whether these relationships within the institution influence practices that foster curricular reform in mathematics education in Ethiopia.

The topic seems relevant to me and the article states it quite clearly. On the one hand, it is necessary to understand teachers' practices (from their initial training and their specialised knowledge for teaching), and on the other hand, to frame them in their institutional environment. The article focuses on this second aspect. However, in the literature review I believe that some aspects that explain teachers' practices need to be better explained. On the one hand, it would be interesting to briefly explain what kind of initial training mathematics teachers receive in Ethiopia. The part of the theoretical framework devoted to explaining PD programmes is long, and yet we do not know what kind of mathematics training teachers in Ethiopia have received (in content knowledge? in pedagogical content knowledge? (Shulman)). The lack of teacher training is explained at several points in the paper, but it needs to be better explained.

The other, even more relevant, aspect that should be included in the theoretical framework is what the mathematics reform in Ethiopia consists of, how long it has been in place and who is in charge of its implementation. Clarifying this aspect is very important because practices are always contrasted with a vision of the reform. It is true that it is explained that the reform is inspired by a comprehensive and conceptual perspective on mathematics learning, focusing on student reasoning, but no information is given about the actual reform in Ethiopia and how it is implemented. what the education system is and how the reform curriculum is implemented.

So, I have some questions: Is the curriculum reform only in Mathematics or is it for the whole education system? Is it centralised or decentralised? What is the relationship between syllabi and curricular reform? Is the syllabi of the schools not updated according to the reform, and why? If neither the community of school leaders nor the community of district experts are trained on the reform, who is in charge of monitoring the new curriculum? How are district experts chosen, if they are not aware of the curriculum reform? are they inspectors? I think it is important to learn more about the education system in Ethiopia and how the mathematics education reform is being managed (or not).

Finally, I also have some doubts in the methodology: it is said that several rounds of interviews were done, with cascading effect. How many interviews were done in the first round?  If no CoP influences were identified in the first round, in which round did the three potential communities of practice emerge? When were the authors able to detect this influence, in the second round, when school or district leaders were interviewed, when the interrelationships between CoPs were found?

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

I have no further comments to make on the article. The authors have taken my comments correctly into account and I consider the paper suitable for publication.