I am on a 3.75 Year ESRC Midlands Graduate School studentship at Loughborough. I hold an MA in Mathematics Education from the UCL Institute of Education, a PGCE in Secondary Mathematics from Goldsmiths, University of London and an MA (Cantab) in Natural Sciences, with specialism in Astrophysics, from the University of Cambridge. I am also a fellow of the International Society for Design and Development in Education (ISDDE).
My career has spanned the healthcare and education sectors and I have taught Mathematics, Science and ICT in schools in the UK, Europe and the Middle East. I am also an educational strategy consultant and have worked internationally with various clients including schools, NGOs and ministries of education to improve education standards – especially in STEM. This has involved management and teacher training, advisory inspection, school SLT consultation, project evaluation and securing educational funding at a national level.
I am also co-founder of an international Extended Reality (XR) in Mathematics Education Special Interest Group which has been active since 2021 and meets online fortnightly – and welcomes new members!
I am using a Design-Based Research approach to develop an Augmented Reality (AR) number line, aiming to enhance conceptual understanding of fractions at primary/elementary level. I plan to compare the effectiveness of learning with such a resource both cognitively and affectively against conventional, paper-based number lines that are used ubiquitously in today’s primary classrooms.
Research Publications:
O’Brien, D., Moeller, K., & Foster, C. (in press). A conceptual framework for optimising number line development in augmented reality [Abstract]. Research in Mathematics Education.
O’Brien, D., Moeller, K., & Foster, C. (2025). A framework for design decisions for developing an augmented reality number line resource. In C. Cornejo, P. Felmer, D. M. Gómez, P. Dartnell, P. Araya, A. Peri, & V. Randolph (Eds.), Proceedings of the 48th Conference of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education: General Contributions (p. 299). PME. https://eventos.cmm.uchile.cl/pme48/wp-content/uploads/sites/195/2025/07/preliminary_v2_pme48_proceedings_generalcontributions.pdf
Moeller, K., O’Brien, D. & Foster, C. (in press). Which way should a number line go? Primary Mathematics, Mathematical Association.
O’Brien, D., Moeller, K. & Foster, C. (2025). A conceptual framework for optimising number line development in Augmented Reality. In Fujita, T. (Ed.) Proceedings of the British Society for Research into Learning Mathematics 45 (1) March 2025. https://bsrlm.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/BSRLM-CP-45-1-8.pdf
O’Brien, D., Riding, K., Ibrahim, M., Du, W., Li, S., Liu, B. & Rumbelow, M. (in press). A bibliometric analysis of research on the usage of augmented reality in mathematics education. Proceedings of the 15th International Congress on Mathematical Education (ICME-15) https://icme15.org/
O’Brien, D. & Riding, K. (2024). Bibliometric analysis of the usage of augmented reality (AR) in mathematics education [Poster presentation]. In T. Evans, O. Marmur, J. Hunter, G. Leach & J. Jhagroo (Eds.). Proceedings of the 47th Conference of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education (Vol. 1). PME. https://www.igpme.org/publications/current-proceedings/
Riding, K., O’Brien, D., Ibrahim, M., Du, W., Li, S., Liu, B. & Clarke-Wilson, A. (2023). Augmented reality manipulatives: New mathematical tools for classrooms. Mathematics Teaching, 287, 34-38. (Audio version; Podcast: Spotify, Apple)