The SIJ Transactions on Industrial, Financial & Business Management (IFBM), Vol. 2, No.

3, May 2014
ISSN: 2321-242X 2014 | Published by The Standard International Journals (The SIJ) 140



AbstractThe objective of this paper is to explore how the kindergarten teachers professional learning and
development as engaged in the teaching of early childhood mathematics can be enhanced through the use of
action research. The focus is drawn on the understanding of how the emergence of the teachers self-awareness
can be identified through the observation-reflection cycles and the understanding itself as such is a critical
issue that has not yet clearly addressed in the previous study. On the basis of a collaborative action research
approach, a project that contributes to the professional learning and development as engaged by a university
researcher and a kindergarten teacher is described. The project has been undertaken in one Hong Kong
kindergarten class in school. In this project, multiple sources of data have been elicited for triangulation during
the research process. These include school based curriculum guide, teaching plans, teacher journal, interviews,
children works and observation of children learning activities. The findings of this research indicate that the
enhancement of the teachers professional learning and development grounded in action research perspective
will in turn raise her awareness for helping children learn mathematics in early childhood.
KeywordsAction Research; Early Childhood Mathematics; Professional Development; Professional
Learning; Teaching.

I. INTRODUCTION
HE objective of this paper is to investigate through the
use of action research how the kindergarten teachers
professional learning as well as development can be
enhanced as she engaged herself in the teaching of early
childhood mathematics. The focus is drawn on the
understanding of how the emergence of the teachers self-
awareness can be seen using the teaching log as a tool for
documenting the change in her practices as identified in the
observation-reflection cycles and we argue that the
understanding itself as such deserves our efforts for it.
1.1. Related Works
Action research has widely been recognised not just as an
essential methodological but a powerful reflective tool for
enhancing research-based practice [see Gore & Zeichner,
1991]. In early childhood setting, attempts at helping young
children (3 to 5 years children) learn high-quality
mathematics (a great concern raised in the joint position
statement by NAEYC and NCTM, 2002) through the
adoption of action research framework have recently been
made [for instance, Haynes et al., 2007]. As advocated, this
usually involves collaboration between the kindergarten
teachers and the university researchers; the latter would
conduct a second-order enquiry [Elliott, 2007] into the
protocols of action research methodology as adopted by the
former who investigate their practices as well as their
knowledge within the domain of mathematics.
The latest move in early childhood education saw an
ambitious attempt to advocate for the notion of
mathematisation [see Clements et al., 2009; Sarama &
Clements, 2012; Clements & Sarama, 2013] in the classroom
setting through the more explicit use of mathematical
language during the play activities. Sarama & Clements
(2012) argue strongly that teachers should adopt intentional
teaching and sequenced mathematics curricula through the
development of research-based learning trajectories in order
to provide children the necessary mathematised experiences
for their further development of mathematical ability.
However, the advocacy of mathematisation was no more or
less ambitious than the any other attempts that have claimed
to have their works rested on Freudenthals (1973)
endeavour. It was even unfortunate to see that the notion of
mathematisation could be misleading when it would be used
to shape the professional practice. The idea of such a notion
T
*Department of Curriculum and Instruction, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, HONG KONG. E-Mail:hylaw{at}cuhk{dot}edu{dot}hk
**Centre for Childhood Research and Innovation, The Hong Kong Institute of Education, HONG KONG.
E-Mail: rhccheung{at}ied{dot}edu{dot}hk
Huk Yuen Law* & Hiu Ching Cheung Rainbow**
Enhancing Professional Learning and
Development in the Teaching of Early
Childhood Mathematics through Action
Research
The SIJ Transactions on Industrial, Financial & Business Management (IFBM), Vol. 2, No. 3, May 2014
ISSN: 2321-242X 2014 | Published by The Standard International Journals (The SIJ) 141
has been translated either into the teaching of harder
mathematics requiring more sophisticated level of ability or
into a crude application of mathematics with the absence of
real-life context rather than relating it to Freudenthals
advocacy of seeing mathematics as a human activity through
which the children make sense of their own living
experiences. We cannot agree more on the Final words as
described by Sarama & Clements (2012) that many adults
have biases against mathematics, and these adults militate
against mathematics for their children and these adults
would have also included not just the parents but also many
of the teachers who are working in early childhood settings. It
is not fair, nevertheless, to put blame on the teachers as they
would not find it comfortable with the explicit and concise
use of mathematical language in their actual teaching without
any demand for receiving the more rigor training for such a
purpose.
The learning trajectories as advocated by Clements &
Sarama (2013) in the form of instructional tasks enable
teachers to sketch a curriculum that can help them informing
and guiding their own instructions for the ongoing monitoring
of student learning. Nonetheless, the use of learning
trajectories for specific domains in mathematics requires the
teachers to have their professional autonomy so as to put into
effect of the discernment on the enhancement of childrens
mathematical thinking and reasoning before the teachers can
chart the developmental progression for the children they are
teaching. The notion of teachers as researchers and the idea
of action research that entail implications for both the
authorship of practitioners professional autonomy [Elliott,
1990] and the enhancement of their self-awareness in their
own practices [Law, 2009]. According to Elliott (1991),
action research can be regarded as the study of a social
situation with a view to improving the quality of action
within it (bold italics is our emphases here). In the setting of
early mathematics education, the quality of teachers action
will be examined by looking into the degree of discernment
they can demonstrate in valuing of the social situation (the
classroom) in which they have made conscientious efforts at
making mathematical thinking visible [Law & Cheung,
2014]. In the context of action research [see Elliott, 2007],
the university mathematics educators will adopt a role of
facilitating the teachers to create their pedagogical possibility
for action by validating and theorizing the theoretical
knowledge as adopted and constructed in the actual particular
classroom contexts. In the present study, we would argue that
in the context of action research the use of field experience
log [Francis et al., 1999] as a powerful research artefact to be
adopted by the kindergarten teachers will enhance their self-
awareness in helping children to elicit the mathematical
thinking in a more visible way.
1.2. The Context of the Study
In Hong Kong, early childhood education and care services
for the pre-primary years are offered mainly in the private
sector and are attended by the majority of two to five year
olds [Chan & Chan, 2003]. Every pre-primary institution has
its own mission, different operation modes and teaching
approaches. As a result, the qualities of pre-primary
curriculum as implemented vary.
In 2006, The Curriculum Development Council
published Guide to the Pre-primary Curriculum aims at
developing a curriculum framework for pre-primary
institutions' reference and adoption. There are four
developmental objectives for young children, namely
Physical Development, Cognitive and Language
Development, Affective and Social Development and
Aesthetics Development. These objectives need to be
achieved through six learning areas, which are physical
Fitness and Health, Language, Early Mathematics,
Science and Technology, Self and Society and Arts.
Pre-primary institutions need to formulate their own
curriculum based on the guide and transform it in actual
practices so as to provide appropriate learning experiences for
children [CDC, 2006].
It is argued strongly that early mathematics is essential in
pre-primary curriculum as it will be of great promise for
improving later achievement through enhanced mathematical
thinking [Ginsburg et al., 2008]. However, the guide does not
help schools to develop their own mathematics curriculum as
it is too general and inadequate. For example, the guide
suggests children should build up basic concepts of space
and time through a wide range of activities; the activities
should be interesting and should match children's interests
[CDC, 2006]. In the context of classroom teaching, What to
teach and How to teach? are still the long existing and yet
unsettling issues in the actual practices of early education.
1.3. The Setting of the Study
The kindergarten curriculum as practiced in Hong Kong is a
theme-based one. There are around 10 themes to be
completed within a school year and each theme normally
lasts for 3 to 5 weeks. In line with the six learning areas
[CDC, 2006], the preschool curriculum based on a certain
theme or topic would then be designed by organising most of
the learning activities around the theme as set.
In early mathematics, the school shave put much
emphasis on helping children grasp preliminary mathematics
concepts such as counting, ordering, sequencing, sorting
through the mastery of a set of skills and procedures. The
school-based curriculum would be adopted and a series of
teaching kits for mathematics instruction and learning
assessment will be used in order to meet the mathematical
learning objectives as specified by the schools themselves. As
a usual practice, childrens learning will follow a traditional
drill-and-practice approach such that they are provided with
the teaching kits to undergo the repeated practices in the
classroom with minimal guidance from the teacher.
In the kindergarten classroom, mathematics teaching is
integrated and set into one-hour session in the morning,
Mondays through Fridays, in the forms of the circle time and
small group learning. During the circle time, the teacher
introduces various learning activities to help children
understand mathematics concept by demonstrating how the
The SIJ Transactions on Industrial, Financial & Business Management (IFBM), Vol. 2, No. 3, May 2014
ISSN: 2321-242X 2014 | Published by The Standard International Journals (The SIJ) 142
teaching kits are operated and illustrating what sorts of the
principles and activities rules should be picked up through the
use of the kits. Small group learning that follows the circle
time will enable six to eight children to choose freely from
five to seven learning activities as set at different tables (with
the mathematics teaching kits) around the corners of the
classroom. During the small group period, the teacher
oversees the classroom and encourages children to engage
themselves in different learning activities without any
specific role as required for the teacher to guide children
learn the mathematics behind the activities.
The project was undertaken through a research
partnership between a university researcher and a teacher at
one Hong Kong kindergarten. The teacher worked as an early
childhood educator for 3 years. This action research project
involved a group of twenty eight children aged 3 to 4 years
old. During the research process, other two kindergarten
teachers who acted as the critical friends of the teacher
researcher taught the same age group of children. They were
invited for interviews as well as doing peer-observation for
data triangulation.
II. THE EMERGENCE OF REFLEXIVITY
2.1. The Use of Research Log
In the action research context, the participant teacher who has
strived at making mathematical thinking visible in the setting
of kindergarten classroom adopted a researchers role while
doing her teaching. By situating the teachers self in the
experienced context, the data as systematically collected and
recorded in the field experience log during the research
process serve as the source for triggering the emergence of
reflexivity through which the teachers awareness can be
raised. The teacher used the log to document the daily
happening of classroom scenario. As included in it, some
critical dialogues during the teaching episodes are to be
identified by both the teacher and the university researcher
during their meeting in the Sharing Seminar. By reflecting on
the critical dialogues, the teacher has expressed a strong
inclination towards re-drafting the action plan for her
teaching while developing the learning trajectories for
helping children learn the counting strategies. In the section
that follows, we will delineate how the teachers professional
learning can be enhanced through the observation-reflection
cycles as based on the teachers documentation of her
teaching experiences in the log and the on-going dialogues
between the teacher and the university researcher in the
Sharing Seminar.
2.2. The Observation-Reflection Cycles
The collaborative efforts in this project have come from the
dialogues between the participant teacher who want to make
a change in her own pedagogical practices and the university
researcher who desire to advocate the idea of teacher-as-
researcher for the enhancement of professional learning and
development in the teaching early childhood mathematics. As
a researcher, the teacher has a vital role to play to keep up
with the documentation of what she would have observed in
the classroom activities and what she would have reflected
from the observations. As such, the use of the log serves at
least for two major purposes: (1) for the self-reflection of the
teacher; (2) for the facilitating of the conversation exchanges
during the Sharing Seminar. Within the period of the research
process, we have identified four phases of changes in the
observation-reflection cycles as based on the extracts of the
log and the dialogues. These phases are described as follows.
In Phase 1, when the teacher read and re-read what she
had written down in the log of what actually happened in the
classroom, she was beginning to have a self-puzzlement over
her professional role as a teacher in doing the routine
pedagogical practices (see Teacher log 1).
Teacher Log 1
Honestly I dont know how to teach early maths. As a
teacher, I know each early maths objectives of the
learning kits. I could teach my kids how to manipulate
the learning kits but not the maths itself. To
improve maths learning and teaching in my
classroom, I try to be more alert and sensible to maths
learning and teaching, instead of just tell my kids how
to make it or do demonstration for them. I try to
observe my kids carefully.
In Phase 2, that very kind of self-bewilderment led the
teacher to look into her classroom practice through a more
critical lens and for the very first time that she shared with the
childrens boredom in engaging the mathematics learning
activities. Such an observation enabled herself to take up a
more active role at dialoguing with the children during the
mathematics-related learning activities (see Teacher log 2).
Teacher Log 2
After paying more attention to maths activity in the
classroom, I found my kids felt really boring. Maths
activities were all table tasks and independent
learning kits. In free-choice activities, my children
seldom choose to pick maths activity. To make it more
fun, can maths learning happen in learning corner in
the classroom? Children love to play in learning
corner which is usually for role play, science
discovery
In Phase 3, the teacher started taking careful notes on the
teacher-children mathematics dialogues as recalled from the
classroom interactions and tried making sense of them
through the conversation exchanges with the university
researcher during the Sharing Seminar (see Teacher log 3).
Teacher Log 3
Apart from observe my kids in the classroom, I started
to write down what happen and what did they say
which is interested me. After reread the notes, It is
surprise that I understand my kids more, I would know
more how they think and how they learn through the
conversation. It is of great value for my teaching.
The SIJ Transactions on Industrial, Financial & Business Management (IFBM), Vol. 2, No. 3, May 2014
ISSN: 2321-242X 2014 | Published by The Standard International Journals (The SIJ) 143
In phase 4, the teacher started to re-think her role as a
professional teacher on the pedagogical practices through the
critical dialogues as shared during the Sharing Seminar.
2.3. The Critical Dialogues as I dentified in the Sharing
Seminar
Here we present two critical dialogues to serve the purpose of
how the teachers self-awareness has been raised through the
use of these for facilitating her change in the pedagogical
practices.
For instance, the following conversations during the
classroom activity at the learning corner have been noted and
shared in the Sharing seminar:
Goal: one-to-one correspondence between counting numbers
1-10 and objects.
Activities: The number cards 1 to 10 are attached to the
baskets. Grouping in pair, the children are asked to pick the
correct number of bears and then put them into the
appropriate basket with the corresponding number card being
attached to it. For example, three bears will be picked and put
into the basket with the number card of 3 being attached to it.
Critical Dialogue 1: Conversations at the Learning Corner
Child 1: (pointing to the basket with number 3) You are
wrong! It is three!
Child 2: (looking closely at the basket and noticed only two
bears inside) Oh! Yes. I need one more bear!
Child 1: No. It is three. Three bears.
Child 2: No. There are two bears already. I need one bear.
(Then putting one more bear into the basket.)
Child 1: Yeah! It is three. Three bears now.
The sharing of this child-child dialogue in the Sharing
Seminar enabled the teacher to make a deeper sense of what
the children had made up their interpretations over the basic
ideas of manipulating the numbers as related to the notion of
quantities as embodied.
Critical Dialogue 2: Conversation at Another Learning
Corner
The scenario: The teacher noticed and wondered why a child
at another learning corner picking one bear each time and put
it one by one into the basket of 10 though finally he had
filled up the basket with the ten bears.
Teacher: Why do you pick one bear only each time?
Child 3: In my worksheet, for 1, I stuck one apple (sticker);
for 2, I stuck one apple (sticker) and one apple (sticker).
Teacher: How about 10?
Child 3: one apple and one apple and one apple and one
apple 10 apples!
The teacher had realised from this teacher-child dialogue
how the children were trained to do with the one-by-one
counting through the use of stickers as the semiotic artifacts
for the making sense of the physical objects
After the Sharing Seminar with the discussion of the
critical dialogues, the teacher made an important remark in
her field experience log:
The children used to learn independently on an
individual basis through the manipulations of the
learning kits over and over again until they got what
the teacher expected to them to achieve. The whole
learning process is rather mechanical! The
conversations inspired me that children can learn
beyond what I have anticipated through mathematical
communication in the form of child-child and child-
teacher interactions.
The schematic diagram below summarises the research
process through which the teacher has undergone the
observation-reflection cycles as identified in the four phases
of change in terms of her pedagogical awareness.

Observation-Reflection Cycles
III. CONCLUDING REFLECTIONS
The research project has contributed to raising teacher
awareness in developing her professional learning and
development in early childhood settings by making
mathematical thinking visible not just the physical visibility
but the visibility of mathematical discourse that constitutes
childrens mathematical reasoning behind their thinking. The
teacher who has engaged in this study agreed that engaging in
action research had enabled her to recognise that more could
be done by drafting her own sketch of curriculum in order to
help the children learn early childhood mathematics in a
better way. The case study, though in a small scale, justifies
its own purpose if it can have developed an agenda for
mathematics educators to think seriously of what and how
should be done to enhancing the teachers self-awareness in
undertaking of early mathematics education by articulating
effectively their pedagogical documentation for children,
teachers and even parents. Future research based on the
further investigations on the fostering of childrens
mathematical thinking through the teachers critical
reflections will throw more light on the enhancement of
effective professional development in the early childhood
education.
O
Observed routine practice of the learning and teaching in classroom
R
Confused about teacher role in children learning mathematics.
O
Observed children being boried in the mathematics learning activities
R
Seeked ways to improve mathematics learning activities (group work /
attractive learning conner)
O
Observed and took notes of children mathematics conversations in the
innovative new activities
R
Tried to understand how chlidren think and learn through their
conversations in mathematics activities
O
Observed children behaviour in the mathematics learning activities and had
conversations with them
R
Rethink about teacher role and value in children learning mathematics and
the importance of mathematics communication in the learning mathematics
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ISSN: 2321-242X 2014 | Published by The Standard International Journals (The SIJ) 144
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Huk-Yuen Law is assistant professor in the
Department of Curriculum and Instruction,
Faculty of Education, The Chinese University
of Hong Kong, where he leads the
mathematics education team and also holds
the positions of the program director of the
Master of Science in Mathematics Education
and the program coordinator of the B.Ed. of
Mathematics and Mathematics Education.
His research interests include action research in education,
communication in the teaching and learning of mathematics, values
in mathematics education, and mathematics teacher education.
Hiu Ching Cheung Rainbow is an EdD
student of the school of Education, University
of Bristol. She had been a kindergarten teacher
in Hong Kong for three years. Currently, she is
a project officer in the Centre for Childhood
Research and Innovation, The Hong Kong
Institute of Education. Her research interests
include early mathematics and science
education, teacher professional development,
and the improvement of classroom teaching.