Cross-Pollination in Mathematics Education Workshop 2022 (Edition 2)

African Institute for Mathematical Sciences, Rwanda

26 – 30 March, 2022

Kigali, Rwanda

Workshop aims and goals

The goal of this workshop is to provide a platform for educators from across the African continent to discuss implementation, sustainability, scalability, impact, good practices and challenges for a range of mathematics education initiatives. The workshop is a smaller-scale follow-on from the Cross-Pollination in Mathematics Education 2019 Workshop (Edition 1), that was held at AIMS Ghana. The workshop will target three different groups:

  1. A core team of local and international teachers, scientists, researchers and community leaders, that have long-term involvement in a collaboration of maths education initiatives across the African continent. This collaboration is centered around groups who organize maths camps in different African countries, which constitute one of the key initiatives;
  2. Invited participants that are in the position to play a key role in initiating, scaling and expanding future initiatives;
  3. Educators and representatives of Rwanda-based organizations with potential to impact the educational landscape of the mathematical sciences in Rwanda.

By bringing these actors together, we hope to achieve cross-pollination of math education initiatives on a wider scale, and the creation of a pan-Africa community that can share expertise and join forces for initiatives across countries and cultures.

A key component of the workshop will be to develop a strategy for 2023 and the years to come, in particular the planning for larger-scale follow-on meetings. We hope that this workshop provides a platform for maths educators to share insights, ideas, challenges and plans for future initiatives in maths education.

Overview

The workshop consists of two parts. The first part lasts 2 days and involves the core team. The second part lasts 3 days and is intended for follow-on activities with a subset of the core team, potentially involving a broader audience.

  • Part 1 (26-27 March): The first two days will be a discussion-driven workshop allowing participants to share their experiences and visions, and formulate goals for the future. 
  • Part 2 (28-30 March): The second part of the workshop will  involve school visits for experiential activities with students in a few selected schools not too far from Kigali.

Each day will build upon the previous days and the leading topics will be:

  1. How is change in mathematics education being achieved ?
  2. How to make this change sustainable and scalable?
  3. How does it impact development in Africa?
  4. How did the pandemic affect maths education in Africa, which were the challenges and which were the solutions that worked out well?
  5. Virtual math camps and projects that took place since Edition 1 of the workshop.
  6. Follow-on discussions on community of practice as started at Edition 1 of the workshop.
  7. Future projects, math camps, meetings.

Key outcomes of the workshop include

  • Theory of change including pathways for impact of mathematics education in a broader context.
  • How to convert existing successes into new scalable initiatives.
  • Identifying opportunities of using technology as an enabler for learning and reaching communities.
  • Future activities.

For more information, see

Organizing Committee

Funded in partnership with

  • African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS) Rwanda-Teacher Training Program
  • Swiss National Foundation “Resurgent topological recursion, enumerative geometry and integrable hierarchies” project
  • California Institute of Technology
  • Supporting African Mathematics Initiatives (SAMI)