It has been a vibrant and productive week for the Active Numeracy research group, marked by international collaboration and inspiring exchanges of ideas. We were delighted to host Professor Victoria Simms and Professor Camilla Gilmore from the ESRC Centre for Early Mathematics Learning at Loughborough University, who joined us for three full days. During this time, our group engaged in a variety of activities aimed at connecting research with practice.
On Monday and Tuesday, we visited several early childhood education settings together, gaining first-hand insight into how early childhood educators plan their work and how numeracy skills are fostered in real-world settings. These visits sparked rich discussions about pedagogical approaches and the ways research can meaningfully support educators in their daily work.
Tuesday afternoon was filled with presentations and lively discussions. Our junior and senior researchers had the opportunity to get to know professor Gilmore and professor Simms better, introduce themselves, and present some of their ongoing projects. Anssi Vanhala and Veikko Knuuttila shared a presentation on an implementation study in which ECTE students had the opportunity to try an evidence-based intervention programme, “Movement with Early Numeracy.” Sonja Julkunen gave a presentation on interference interventions, and Saara Kokkonen presented a new scale, developed together with Laura Niemi, to assess mathematical vocabulary in young children with multilingual background. Professor Pirjo Aunio concluded the day by presenting our research group’s work on Evidence-Based Methods for Learning Support. In addition to being excellent listeners and insightful commentators, our guests also shared their own work. Camilla introduced the Early Mathematics Centre, and Victoria gave a presentation on the connection between basic research and interventions.
On Wednesday, we shared current projects and introduced the