UWinnipeg’s world-renowned expert on teaching math, Professor Anna Stokke, has recently returned from Sweden and England, where she delivered invited presentations and met with educators to explore what improves educational outcomes.
Her sought-out expertise now includes a five-year appointment as Adjunct Professor and Honorary Co-Director of the Science of Math Education Lab (SOME) in the School of Education at La Trobe University (LTU), in Melbourne, Australia. She will be tackling the math crisis in teaching, which is a worldwide phenomenon.
LTU was given $2.5 million for the SOME Lab, by the Bertalli Family Foundation to advance evidence-based learning to address Australia’s mathematics crisis, similar to the math crisis in Canada. Professor Stokke has been tagged to work with their faculty on this game-changing concept to help improve math learning.
Chalk & Talk has become an important way for me to advance my work in math education and advocacy, and to share effective math teaching practices with educators around the world.
Dr. Anna Stokke
When Professor Stokke was contacted by Professor Barbousas, Pro Vice-Chancellor, Education, Impact and Innovation and Dean of the School of Education at LTU, she welcomed the opportunity to be involved in the SOME Lab. They both share a strong commitment to evidence-based teaching practices as critical for educational transformation.
“This is a really exciting professional opportunity,” shared Professor Stokke. “Professor Barbousas is amazing, there’s nobody like her. She’s really a driving force behind advancing evidence-informed approaches to structured learning and effective teaching practices.”
First initiative of its kind
The SOME Lab is the first initiative of its kind focused on evidence-informed math teaching and was inspired by La Trobe University’s already successful Science of Language and Reading Lab.
The work will include translating research from cognitive science and educational psychology into classroom practice and helping teachers understand how students learn math.
Professor Stokke’s work with the SOME Lab includes sharing her expertise on math instruction; advising on teacher education curriculum and course materials; advising on the activities of the SOME lab; mentoring academics appointed to the SOME Lab; and sharing expertise with external stakeholders (such as schools, government).
The first online SOME Lab four-week course on evidence-informed math teaching is open to teachers worldwide starting April 21, 2026, and will be taught by Professor Stokke and SOME Lab co-director Associate Professor Chrissy Monteleone.
Chalk & Talk Podcast
As part of the SOME Lab initiative, Dr. Stokke was also awarded a five-year $500,000 AUD grant to fund her popular education podcast Chalk & Talk, enable travel to Australia periodically to collaborate with LTU, and support her work in mathematics education and advocacy, both in Canada and internationally. Her podcast is a great knowledge dissemination tool for educators, focusing on effective math teaching and education policy. Chalk & Talk is freely available on all podcast platforms and on YouTube, with over 400,000 downloads from listeners around the world.
“Chalk & Talk has become an important way for me to advance my work in math education and advocacy, and to share effective math teaching practices with educators around the world. This funding will allow me to expand the reach of the podcast and offload some of the production work so I can focus on interviewing world-class education experts to help educators understand how to teach math well, and what makes education systems effective.”
Professor Stokke plans to continue informing the public about evidence-based math teaching to improve math outcomes for K-12 students across Canada, and beyond.
Her work with the SOME Lab builds on her previous work and will contribute to growing momentum for evidence-based approaches to math teaching, grounded in solid data.
