Katie Baker
Research subject and interests
I am currently researching the best way to help parents to support their children in maths. In particular I am interested to find out if parents need to be able to do maths themselves in order to help their children. I am developing two courses based on Lee and Johnston-Wilder’s work on Mathematical Resilience. One course will teach the parents maths techniques and how to parent for Mathematical Resilience while the other will simply teach the parenting techniques without any need for the parents to do maths.
Some parents will be able to select which course they attend whilst others will be randomly allocated to a course. I will consider the effect that each course has on the participants and their children and whether the course with maths is more effective than the one without. I will also consider whether being able to select their own course makes a difference to outcomes for the parent and child.
Finally I will consider whether a course without maths has a greater uptake among parents than one which includes maths.
Biography
After doing an undergraduate maths degree, Katie Baker trained as a secondary school maths teacher and taught maths in a City Technology College and Catholic Secondary School for 5 years. She then set up her own business providing tutoring and classes for parents on how to help their children in maths, as well as consultancy maths teaching. Katie also became an employee of Coventry University, working in Sigma where she provides one-to-one drop-in maths help in the Mathematics Support Centre.
As part of this role, Katie has also lectured on courses to the Engineering and Disaster Management cohorts and provided dyslexia support. These experiences have meant she has encountered people struggling with maths at all levels and ages and has a good understanding of how people struggle and how they can be helped.
