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Mrs. Smith and Mr. Jun’s Reciprocal Learning Partnership

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Reciprocal Learning for Cross-Cultural Mathematics Education

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Abstract

This chapter investigates the reciprocal learning partnerships (RLP) between a pair of elementary mathematics teachers where one teacher is from Changchun, China and one teacher is from Toronto, Canada. The goal of this research was to better understand the cultural and educational perspectives of Canadian and Chinese mathematics educators and answer the question: What can Chinese and Canadian mathematics teachers learn from each other? Over a period of three years, Mr. Jun and Mrs. Smith engaged in collaborative activities such as video conferencing, online messaging, and traveling to meet each other. Data for this study were collected through interviews, classroom observations, videos, documents, journals, and e-communication transcripts. Findings suggest that, when Canadian and Chinese math teachers learn from each other, both teachers’ self-efficacy will increase. Furthermore, Canadian teachers will increase their mathematics content knowledge while the Chinese teachers will increase their mathematics pedagogy knowledge.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Sijia Cynthia Zhu

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  1. Sijia Cynthia Zhu
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Correspondence to Sijia Cynthia Zhu .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Sijia Cynthia Zhu

  2. Faculty of Education, Northeast Normal University, Changchun City, China

    Shu Xie

  3. Faculty of Education, Northeast Normal University, Changchun City, China

    Yunpeng Ma

  4. Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Douglas McDougall

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Zhu, S.C. (2020). Mrs. Smith and Mr. Jun’s Reciprocal Learning Partnership. In: Zhu, S.C., Xie, S., Ma, Y., McDougall, D. (eds) Reciprocal Learning for Cross-Cultural Mathematics Education . Intercultural Reciprocal Learning in Chinese and Western Education. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56838-2_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56838-2_5

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-56837-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-56838-2

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