Science and Mathematics Education Seminar Series 2008

Below is a timetable of upcoming seminars for 2008. To view past seminars please visit our seminar archive page.

Book Launch - Pedagogies of the imagination

James Bradbeer
Abdul Ghafoor Abdul Raheem
Gerry Healy
Rod Fawns

In July 2005 an invited residential seminar held at the University of Melbourne investigated imagination and mythopeisis in the curriculum in educational practise. Participants from Australia, Canada and the USE spoke from their research and experience about intellectual purposes and their accomplishment in a range of academic and practical fields including education. The enquiries depart from the instrumental in shaping school and university curricula to give fuller plat to expressive relations with people, objects of meaning and human imagination in our methods and goals. The book, Pedagogies of the imagination, was recently published by Springer and edited by Tim Leonard (Chicago) and Peter Willis (South Australia). The book has been launched in both Chicago and Adelaide.

STEM pathways: a response to issues raised participation in a DEEWR literature review

John Cripps Clark
ICT in Research and Education, University of Melbourne

Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) is seen as increasingly important to young peoples’ success in an information-rich world and building Australia’s capacity. STEM skills and knowledge are seen as essential to meeting the challenges of the new century.
This talk outlines the findings of a review of the literature on the barriers and supports that young people encounter in pursuing studies in STEM disciplines in Australia conducted for DEEWR and my personal response to some of the issues that arose as a member of the team led by Russell Tytler.
The report reviews literature across a variety of disciplines on trends in STEM participation in Australia and globally, and investigated existing and ongoing research and literature on the reasons why people either continue or discontinue study and employment in STEM related fields. The review focused on the issue of transition, examining specifically changes and continuities in attitudes to STEM subjects as students make the transition from primary to secondary school, and from the middle to upper secondary school years. It identified issues bearing on student pathways in STEM, profiles the existing STEM workforce, and describes broad trends in engagement in STEM in Australia.

Impressions and Ideas from Recent Conferences
Convened by Professor Kaye Stacey
Foundation Professor of Mathematics Education, University of Melbourne

This is an open and informal discussion whereby all academics and students who have recently attended conferences are invited to share with the audience some of their impressions of changes in the field and the most interesting ideas encountered.

Constructing Versatile Mathematical Conceptions

Associate Professor Mike Thomas
Mathematics Education Unit, Department of Mathematics, The University of Auckland New Zealand

In this talk I describe the idea of versatile mathematical thinking as comprising: process/object; visuo/analytic; and representational versatility. Examples, taken from algebra, calculus and linear algebra, will be presented to illustrate the role of these three aspects in building student conceptions, and some advantages of versatile mathematical thinking. In addition, ways in which such versatility may be mediated through an informed use of technology, and the implications for teachers’ pedagogical technology knowledge (PTK) will be discussed.

Algebraic Argumentation: Instructional Design and Students’ Learning Effect

Ing-Er Chen
Teacher Education CENTRE, Fooyin University, Taiwan

This study is a four-year project which was to design algebraic worksheets for students to experience the thinking processes of mathematical conjecturing. We explored the theoretical backing for instructional design, developed learning aids, conducted lesson studies and evaluated the effect of learning aids and class teaching. In this talk, I will give one example of the Consecutive Numbers problems: the sum of n consecutive integers is always an even number to share with you my research result and research experience. This mini study investigated what is the key mechanism to affect the success in conjecturing activity. There were 35, 38, 39 students belonging to three classes of grade 7, 8, 9 in the study. They were asked to answer the questions and write down their ideas in 40 minutes in the classroom. The results were: there were 62.9%, 84.3% and 87.2% students in grade 7, 8, 9 who were able to propose at least one conjecture. And less than 3% students in grade 7 and 8, and 18% students in grade 9 could propose one more conjectures. Most students gave examples when they were asked to give more conjectures. In addition, we found that there were 22.9%, 28.9% and 43.6% students in grade 7, 8, 9 using conditional terms to describe the common property. “Give an example” and “Use conditional terms” are two important mechanisms to make conjectures successfully.

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Evaluating a Series of Learning about “Teaching Mathematics”

Ru-Fen Yao
National Chia-Yi University

The main purpose of this research is to share a useful experience of how postgraduate students evaluate the different activities of a course named “Research on mathematics teaching design”. Based on the viewpoints from Cochran, DeRuiter, ＆ King (1993) and Shulman (1986, 1987), the researcher arrange a series of learning about “teaching mathematics” for the participants. There are five learning activities—“Knowing mathematics curriculum and poster making,” “Evaluating examples of designing mathematics instruction” “Literature review on mathematics misconception,” “Mathematics teaching/learning Q&A,” and “Mathematics teaching design and practice” arranged in this course to improve participants’ knowledge of mathematics curriculum, ability of mathematics instructional design, and understanding about student’s mathematics learning. With classroom observation, questionnaire survey, and related document analysis, the researcher mainly explores into the level of preference and opinions of participants toward these five learning activities, and whether the series of learning about “mathematics teaching” may facilitate their professional development. The results show that 1) the most preferred one in five activities is “Mathematics teaching design and practice”, the one ranked the second is “Mathematics teaching/learning Q&A”, and “Literature review on mathematics misconception” is less preferred activity. 2) Other than “Knowing mathematics curriculum and poster making,” the other four activities arranged by the researcher are all highly praised for their effectiveness of improving mathematics instruction.

THE LANGUAGE IN MATHEMATICS, THE MATHEMATICS OF LANGUAGE: An empirical measure of language-in-use efficiency in algebra learning

Robert de la Serna
PhD student, Science and Mathematics Education

This study investigates the effectiveness and efficiency of mathematics instruction in two language modes (English vs. Cebuano/English Code-Switching) on the performances of 450 Filipino algebra students in 11 classes of a Philippine private high school. Conducted in 2005-2006, a quasi-experiment addressed the question: Between the two languages of instruction, which promotes better algebra learning among Filipino bilingual students? The analyses evaluate the performances of both the high-ability (comprising 3 classes) and average ability students (comprising 8 classes) using Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) to compare the effectiveness of languages-in-use on student achievement, and Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA)—a novel economic modelling approach—to measure the relative efficiencies of student learning outcomes. The seminar will share some of the study’s findings.


Modes of reasoning in explanations in Year 8 textbooks

Dr Jill Vincent and Professor Kaye Stacey
Science and Mathematics Education, University of Melbourne

Understanding that mathematics is not just an arbitrary collection of rules to follow is basic to good mathematics learning, but studies show that many classrooms exhibit little mathematical reasoning. In order to better understand the nature of reasoning in schools, in a preliminary study we examined the modes of explicit reasoning in the explanations, justification and proofs of several topics in four textbooks. Several distinct modes of reasoning were identified. We are now in the process of developing a taxonomy to cover the range of explanations that are used in mathematics classrooms and textbooks. Feedback on these classifications will be sought from the audience.