So give me all the details about mathematics learning at home

This blog will consider the home as a context for informal learning. The nature of the home as a setting for learning encompasses the location where families live, eat, sleep, and play. For some, the home may even be the location for work. This learning context is shaped by the unique characteristics of the people who inhabit it, where they live, and the immediate environment. Learning at home is interspersed throughout everyday activities both intentionally and unintentionally depending on the family (Legare et al., 2017).

 

Theoretical underpinnings of learning in the home

The theoretical underpinning of the home as a context for learning is that humans are learning all the time (Marton, 2014). We are social creatures who take in information from our surroundings and use this to make sense of the world and building up conceptual frameworks. Informal learning is defined differently by different theorists. Callanan et al. (2011, p647) assert that informal learning is “non-didactic, socially collaborative, and embedded in meaningful activity”.

 

Rogoff et al., 2016) rejects the distinction between formal and informal learning. Her definition contrasts an assembly line model of learning involving the transmission of knowledge by didactic methods with an intent community participation model.  Rogoff reports that schools can have informal learning happening and homes can employ didactic teaching methods. Other definitions make the distinction that formal learning is about abstraction and generalisation but informal learning is located in everyday life and is always context based (Scribner & Cole, 1973). The socio-constructivist tradition is that learning is embedded in activities and practices undertaken by groups of people, rather than individual processing (Legare et al., 2017). In these groups or communities there is both intentional learning outcomes as well as implicit learning about ways of behaving in the group. Informal learning, like all learning, is not separated from simultaneous learning of emotions, place and relationships (Skwarchuk et al., 2014). For small children with their families the context of their day to day life is a meaningful activity, they are bonding with their caregiver and loved ones.

 

Informal learning experiences are multidimensional with a range of input and development happening on multiple fronts for the learner. Bourke et al. (2018) propose a framework for informal learning with 6 dimensions of learning called CRISPA. CRISPA stands for culture, relationships, identity, strategies, purpose and affect/emotion. A single activity or experience will involve learning in more than one dimension as well as subject or content knowledge.

Pedagogical experiences in the home.

The pedagogical experiences for a young learner related to mathematics is embedded in daily practices. Children notice the world around them and engage their family with their observations. What children notice is shaped by the family, the books they read together, conversations they have and so on. Play is an integral part of young children’s learning, play provides new information, skill development and extends children’s conceptual understanding (Ramani & Siegler, 2014). Furthermore, play motivates children’s involvement and leads children to explore (Skwarchuk et al., 2014).

 

Informal learning in the home is built on a child’s natural curiosity and close affinity with the people around her. Children gain mathematical understanding through a range of experiences. Children at home learn through play, exploration, modelling, scaffolded involvement, and direct instruction (Callanan et al., 2011, Skwarchuk et al., 2014). One way children gain mathematical knowledge of numbers and counting is through playing games. For example, children learn number order and counting when playing a game of snakes and ladders. Children’s participation in the game is scaffolded initially and then as their understanding and knowledge grows the assistance is decreased and then removed (Ramani & Siegler, 2014). They count the symbols on the die and begin to recognise them as the total of dots, they translate this to moving their token on the game board.

 

Children gain a mathematical understanding of measurement and comparison through baking or building tasks. Children want to be involved in what their parents are doing and will learn by observation and then through experience, such as being given small tasks to complete (Rogoff et al., 2003). In baking the reading of the recipe by an adult is translated into amounts of ingredients, repeated exposure leads to being able to recognise and later read the numbers and become familiar with, and later practiced with, tools needed for the quantities. In an informal setting contribution is the goal of learning (Skwarchuk et al., 2014).

 

Children gain numerical awareness through activities like shopping or walking and noticing letterboxes or number plates (Ramani & Siegler, 2014). Subject knowledge and Maths knowledge is not necessarily segregated out at this age either. Knowledge of nursery rhymes and chants relate to later math knowledge (Ramani et al., 2015).

 

Research reveals that different families have different amounts of ‘maths talk’ (Ramani et al., 2015; Ramani & Siegler, 2014). Families who use more maths talk predicted better understanding of Mathematics once in school. This research assumes the value of mathematics knowledge and that all families should also value this knowledge in order that children start school with the same Maths understanding as their peers. Learning at home reflects the values of the family and also the time the family has available to spend together (Luce et al., 2013; Ramani & Siegler, 2014). Social pressures differ in each home, it may be that family members are caring for children in the home or children may be attending childcare services. This research doesn’t consider that different families will value and prioritise different types of knowledge and that schools can build on the funds of knowledge students already possess.

 

 

The place of the learner, whanau, and community in learning at home.

The learner and the whānau are both at the centre of home learning. When the learner and the whānau are engaged in meaningful activities reciprocal learning takes place, there is an exchange of understanding as together they play or work. Children are learning skills, knowledge, building up their repertoire of experience but also the other is learning about the child, and learning how to scaffold their knowledge for the child. Parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, siblings and cousins are involved in learning at home and through activity and play develop the knowledge of the learner (Bourke et al., 2018). In home learning the community forms the backdrop and support network for the learner and their whānau. When taking an ecological view, as advocated by Bronfenbrenner, of the learner the community becomes an integral part of the learning taking place due to the two way interactions between the home and the community (Duchesne & McMaugh, 2019). Just as a learner is set in relationships and learns within these the whanau is set within a community and mutual responsibility or give and take influences the family and the learner.