Keynote Speakers
Akihiko Takahashi
DePaul University, United States
"Collaborative Lesson Research: Maximizing the Impact of Lesson Study"
Maitree Inprasitha
Khon Kaen University, Thailand
“Lesson Study incorporating Open Approach: Two practices in Community of Practices to improve Quality of Classroom”
Maitree Inprasitha is an assistant professor for Mathematics Education Program at the Faculty of Education, Khon Kaen University, Thailand. He holds Ph.D. in Mathematics Education from the University of Tsukuba, Japan and has long experiences in studying Japanese lesson study for more than 15 years. His main research focus and publications revolve in Mathematics Education and teaching style of Lesson Study and Open Approach. These could make him being well-known as the first group of Thailand’s educators on implementing this issue to develop mathematics teaching and learning. He has been invited to be a visiting researcher at Naruto University of Education in 2005 and at the University of Tsukuba in 2007.
He has been overseeing the APEC Lesson Study series since 2006 until present. 19 APEC member economies have been participating in this project and created their Lesson Study community in APEC.
He was an IPC for EARCOME in 2007-2013 and Advisory board in 2015. He hosted EARCOME 6 in Phuket, Thailand in 2013. In 2015, he is a chief editor of Mathematics Education Book Series 3: Lesson Study: Challenge in Mathematics Education. He is currently an IPC of ICMI Study 23: Primary Mathematics Study on Whole Number.
At national level, he has been overseeing many national projects implementing lesson study in schools in many parts of the country. The first lesson study project school with collaboration with Khon Kaen University coaching by him will celebrate her 10 years of experiences in implementing lesson study in Thailand. He established the Center for Research in Mathematics Education, the first center in Thailand and this center becomes a part of National Center of Excellence in Mathematics. And he also established Institute for Research and Development in Teaching Profession for ASEAN (IRDTP ASEAN) in 2014.
He has been regularly invited to be an invited speaker and moderator for international conference especially among APEC countries.
Wee Tiong Seah
University of Melbourne, Australia
"Socio-cultural Aspects of Classroom Implementations of Lesson Study"
Wee Tiong Seah is an Associate Professor in Mathematics Education at the Melbourne Graduate School of Education, University of Melbourne, Australia. He had earlier served in Monash University after leaving the secondary classroom as a teacher of mathematics and trainer of mathematics Olympiad teams. Between 2007 and 2009, Wee Tiong was part of an Expert Advisory and Research Group which advised the Australian Commonwealth government on mathematics education matters. Since 2014, he has been an External Examiner for the Chinese University of Hong Kong’s MEd program. In the period 2009 – 2011, Wee Tiong oversaw the setting up of Monash University’s offshore PhD program in Singapore. He is also no stranger to Khon Kaen University, for which he was an External PhD Supervisor. In addition, Wee Tiong was External Consultant in 2005-2007 to the APEC Lesson Study project that was based at Khon Kaen University. He has also been assessor of such research grant bodies as The Netherland’s ‘National Programme for Educational Research’ grant and South Africa’s National Research Foundation. Since 2013, he has served on the International Advisory Board of the ‘Mathematics Education and Society’ group. Wee Tiong was one of three overseas invitational speakers at the 2014 First Chinese Conference of Mathematics Education, amongst his other keynote speaking commitments. On an ongoing basis, he is member of the Editorial Boards of 5 mathematics education research journals, including the ‘International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education’.
Wee Tiong is passionate about the socio-cultural aspects of mathematics learning and teaching. His current research interest relates to what are valued in mathematics education and how these affect the quality of mathematics learning and teaching in schools and in the wider communities. This has led Wee Tiong to conceptualise and lead the 18-nation ‘The Third Wave’ Project. He has an entry in the 2014 ‘Encyclopaedia of Mathematics Education’. He was also invited to co-author for the ‘Second International Handbook of Mathematics Education’, as well as to co-edit a 2012 special thematic issue of the ZDM journal focussing on ‘values in mathematics education’. More generally, Wee Tiong is also author or co-author of more than 100 research publications since 1999.
