BIO

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Dr Thorsten Scheiner is a Senior Research Fellow in mathematics education at the Institute for Learning Sciences and Teacher Education of the Australian Catholic University in Brisbane, Australia. Scheiner was recently appointed Visiting Professor in mathematics teacher education at the Free University of Berlin, one of Germany’s most prestigious universities. Prior to these appointments, he was a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in mathematics education at the Department of Mathematics of the University of Auckland, New Zealand. 

Scheiner studied mathematics, psychology and education at the Leibniz University of Hannover, Germany. In 2018, he received his joint PhD in mathematics education from the University of Hamburg (Germany) and Macquarie University (Australia). He has also been a visiting scholar at Stanford University (USA), the University of California at Berkeley (USA), and the Center for Research in Mathematics and Science Education in San Diego (USA). 

Thorsten Scheiner's research program focuses on enhancing the teaching and learning of mathematics at the secondary and university levels for all students. His research addresses current issues in mathematics education and teacher education and has attracted prestigious awards, fellowships, and scholarships that have led to publications in top-tier outlets in the discipline, including internationally recognised journals such as Educational Studies in Mathematics (one of the two highest-ranked international journals in mathematics education).

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Scheiner's research contributes to the international research literature through theoretical, conceptual, and empirical work in two interrelated lines of research: (a) the nature and development of mathematics teachers’ knowledge and noticing, and (b) the nature and development of students’ mathematical thinking and learning.

In the first line of research, Scheiner promotes new understandings of the nature and development of mathematics teacher knowledge and teacher noticing (i.e., teacher’s attention to, interpretation of and responses to critical classroom events), a field of study that has high relevance to pedagogical practice. This line of research includes original work in advancing conceptualisations of mathematics teacher knowledge and practices, which contributes to the international discourse on how the field conceptualises the professional work of mathematics teachers (Scheiner, 2022; Scheiner, Godino, Montes et al., 2022; Scheiner, Montes, Godino et al., 2019). This research also includes developing a more comprehensive model of teacher noticing that allows the field to move beyond intuitive models that understand teacher noticing as a disembodied, purely mental form of seeing, and to position noticing as embodied, cultural, and positional in important ways (Scheiner, 2016, 2021). Within the field of teacher noticing, Scheiner also contributes to the advancement of knowledge in how pre-service and in-service teachers learn to notice critical instructional events (König, Santagata, Scheiner et al., 2022), especially through the use of innovative video-capture studies in teacher education and professional development programs (Santagata, König, Scheiner et al., 2021). 

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In the second line of research, Scheiner generates new knowledge about students’ mathematical learning, with an emphasis on secondary and tertiary mathematics. In particular, he generates new theoretical and conceptual accounts of students’ knowings and understandings, with a particular focus on highlighting the mathematical strengths and resources that students bring to their learning (Pinto & Scheiner, 2022; Scheiner & Pinto, 2019). This is of particular epistemological significance as deficit-based accounts, which focus primarily on the deficiencies and weaknesses of students’ knowings and understandings, often fail to recognise essential processes in the development of students’ mathematical thinking and learning. In this line of research, Scheiner also advances theoretical innovation in research on mathematical thinking and learning that enables the development of meta-theories on highly contested areas of study, such as conceptual change in mathematical learning (Scheiner, 2020). This is significant because deeper processes in mathematical learning can be identified when tensions, conflicts, and paradoxes between fundamental but opposing theoretical perspectives are acknowledged and exploited.

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To date, Thorsten Scheiner has taught undergraduate courses in mathematics as well as undergraduate and graduate courses in mathematics education at different universities, including the University of Auckland, Macquarie University, the University of Hamburg, Hamburg University of Applied Sciences, and the Humboldt University of Berlin. He also worked as a secondary mathematics teacher in various school systems in Australia, Germany and South Africa before taking up his current research position at the Institute for Learning Sciences and Teacher Education Australia.

Thorsten Scheiner has been the founder and director of the International Community of Emerging Researchers in Mathematics Education and has been the chairperson of three national working groups of the Foundation of German Business. He received the Studienkolleg Fellowship from the Foundation of German Business and the Robert Bosch Foundation; the Klaus Murmann Fellowship from the Foundation of German Business; and the Research Excellence Scholarship from Macquarie University. He has been awarded the Karl H. Ditze Award of the University of Hamburg for his doctoral dissertation, and he has recently been a recipient of the Early Career Researcher Excellence in Research Recognition Award from the Institute of Learning Sciences and Teacher Education Australia. 

Ph.D. I University of Hamburg, Germany & Macquarie University, Australia 

Mathematics Education, 2018

Title of thesis: Toward theory advancement in mathematical cognition and teacher cognition

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Master of Education I Leibniz University of Hannover, Germany

Major in Mathematics, 2013

Title of thesis: Linking general theories of teacher education with theories of mathematics education

Bachelor of Science I Leibniz University of Hannover, Germany

Major in Mathematics, 2011

Title of thesis: Comparative analysis of teacher education studies

(in German: Vergleichende Analyse von Lehrerbildungsstudien)