savoy081

Roger G. Brown from the University of Leeds (UK) has written an article entitled Does the introduction of the graphics calculator into system-wide examinations lead to change in the types of mathematical skills tested? This article was published online in Educational Studies in Mathematics earlier this week. Here is the abstract of his article: The paper reports on the introduction of the graphics calculator into three centralised examination systems, which were located in Denmark, Victoria (Australia) and the International Baccalaureate. The introduction of the graphics calculator required those responsible for writing examination questions to consider how to assess mathematical skills within this new environment. This paper illustrates the types of mathematics skills that have been assessed within the graphics-calculator-assumed environment. The analysis of the examination questions indicated that only two out of the six mathematics examinations considered demonstrated any signific...

Richard Lissaman, Sue de Pomerai and Sharon Tripconey have written an article that was recently published online in Teaching Mathematics and its Applications . The article is entitled Using live, online tutoring to inspire post 16 students to engage with higher level mathematics , and here is a copy of the article's abstract: In recent years, there has been a decline in the number of students aged 16–18 studying and being able to access higher level mathematics in schools in the UK. The Further Mathematics Network (FMN) was set up to enable access to such mathematics to all students and to promote and encourage students to study at this level. The FMN has pioneered the use of Elluminate, a well established web-based package, for live mathematics tutoring. Small groups of students meet online with an experienced tutor to learn new aspects of mathematics and to look at ways to solve complex problems. There are also extensive online resources to support the students’ learning. The fin...

Murat Peker has written an article about Pre-Service Teachers’ Teaching Anxiety about Mathematics and Their Learning Styles . This article was published in the last issue of Eurasia Journal of Mathematics, Science & Technology Education . A main issue in the article is the combination of focus on mathematics (teaching) anxiety and learning styles. When it comes to learning styles, Peker very much builds upon the theories of Kolb (see p. 337). The theoretical overview is quite interesting, and in many respects new to me. The study included 506 pre-service teachers from Turkey, and two instruments were used in the study: the Learning Style Inventory and the Mathematics Teaching Anxiety Scale (both questionnaires). The first questionnaire is derived from Kolb's works, whereas the anxiety scale was developed by the researcher. I miss a discussion of the rationale behind the choice of methods/instruments in the study, and I think this is an important aspect of such a research artic...

The Nordic Journal of Research in Mathematics Education (NOMAD) has recently released the October issue. This issue contains three research articles: Leif Bjørn Skorpen: Nokre spesielle trekk ved arbeidet med matematikkfaget i begynnaropplæringa (in Norwegian) Frode Olav Haara and Kari Smith: Practical activities in mathematics teaching – mathematics teachers’ knowledge based reasons Diana Stentoft and Paola Valero:  Identities-in-action. Exploring the fragility of discourse and identity in learning mathematics

Ornella Robutti has written an article called Graphic calculators and connectivity software to be a community of mathematics practitioners . This article was recently published online in ZDM . Here is the abstract of the article: In a teaching experiment carried out at the secondary school level, we observe the students’ processes in modelling activities, where the use of graphic calculators and connectivity software gives a common working space in the class. The study shows results in continuity with others emerged in the previous ICMEs and some new ones, and offers an analysis of the novelty of the software in introducing new ways to support learning communities in the construction of mathematical meanings. The study is conducted in a semiotic-cultural framework that considers the introduction and the evolution of signs, such as words, gestures and interaction with technologies, to understand how students construct mathematical meanings, working as a community of practice. The novelt...

A new article about teachers' conception of effective mathematics teaching. The article investigates the perspectives of teachers from China and the U.S., and I find it particularly interesting because it focus on the issue of cultural beliefs. I think this is an interesting concept, and I've used it before in one of my own articles. The idea of cultural beliefs comes from results of cross-national studies where researchers have identified clear differences in the teaching practices of teachers from East-Asian and Western countries. In the study referred to in the article below, 9 Chinese teachers and 11 U.S. teachers were interviewed. The semi-structured interviews that were used in the study were constructed according to Ernest's traditional framework of three aspects of mathematics teachers' beliefs. The study showed that the teachers from these two countries held quite different beliefs about good mathematics teaching. These views were also closely connected with th...

The last couple of days, two articles with a focus on using video as a tool for teacher learning and development have been published in Journal of Mathematics Teaching Education. The first article investigates how prospective primary mathematics teachers might learn from on-line discussions. Prospective primary mathematics teachers’ learning from on-line discussions in a virtual video-based environment Journal     Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education Publisher    Springer Netherlands ISSN    1386-4416 (Print) 1573-1820 (Online) DOI    10.1007/s10857-009-9133-0 SpringerLink Date    Wednesday, November 18, 2009 By Salvador Llinares and Julia Valls Abstract The aim of this study was to investigate how participation and reification of ideas about mathematics teaching are constituted in on-line discussions when prospective primary mathematics teachers analysed video-cases about mathematics teaching. Prospecti...

Pnina S. Klein, Esther Adi-Japha and Simcha Hakak-Benizri have written an article called Mathematical thinking of kindergarten boys and girls: similar achievement, different contributing processes . This article was recently published online in Educational Studies in Mathematics . Here is the abstract of their article: The objective of this study was to examine gender differences in the relations between verbal, spatial, mathematics, and teacher–child mathematics interaction variables. Kindergarten children (N = 80) were videotaped playing games that require mathematical reasoning in the presence of their teachers. The children’s mathematics, spatial, and verbal skills and the teachers’ mathematical communication were assessed. No gender differences were found between the mathematical achievements of the boys and girls, or between their verbal and spatial skills. However, mathematics performance was related to boys’ spatial reasoning and to girls’ verbal skills, suggesting that they us...

Christopher Yakes and Jon R. Star have written an article that was recently published online in Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education . The article is entitled Using comparison to develop flexibility for teaching algebra . Here is the abstract of their article: In this paper, we describe a one-day professional development activity for mathematics teachers that promoted the use of comparison as an instructional tool to develop students’ flexibility in algebra. Effective use of comparison in mathematics instruction involves using side-by-side presentation of problems and solution methods and subsequent student discussion of these multiple solution methods to highlight the similarities and differences among problem-solving techniques. The goals of the professional development activity were to make teachers aware of how to use comparison effectively in their instruction, as well as to impact teachers’ own flexibility in algebra by using comparison instructionally during the professional...

Fien Depaepe, Erik De Corte and Lieven Verschaffel have written an interesting article about Teachers’ metacognitive and heuristic approaches to word problem solving: analysis and impact on students’ beliefs and performance . The article was published online in ZDM last Friday. Here is the abstract of their article: We conducted a 7-month video-based study in two sixth-grade classrooms focusing on teachers’ metacognitive and heuristic approaches to problem solving. All problem-solving lessons were analysed regarding the extent to which teachers implemented a metacognitive model and addressed a set of eight heuristics. We observed clear differences between both teachers’ instructional approaches. Besides, we examined teachers’ and students’ beliefs about the degree to which metacognitive and heuristic skills were addressed in their classrooms and observed that participants’ beliefs were overall in line with our observations of teachers’ instructional approaches. In addition, we investi...

The December issue of Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education has been published ( volume 12, number 6 ). This issue is a special issue with focus on social justice perspectives in matheamtics teacher education, and it contains the following articles: Working with mathematics teachers and immigrant students: an empowerment perspective , by Núria Planas and Marta Civil ‘Gender games’: a post-structural exploration of the prospective teacher, mathematics and identity , by Anna Llewellyn Engaging with issues of emotionality in mathematics teacher education for social justice , by Mark Boylan ‘The conference was awesome’: social justice and a mathematics teacher conference , by Tamsin Meaney, Tony Trinick and Uenuku Fairhall

On Friday, a new article by Giorgio T. Bagni was released from Educational Studies in Mathematics . The article is entitled Mathematics and positive sciences: a reflection following Heidegger . Bagni takes Heidegger 's Being and Time as a starting point in an examination of Heidegger's ideas about sciences in general and mathematics in particular. Here is the abstract of Bagni's article: In this article, I make a case for the inputs that Martin Heidegger's theoretical perspective offers to current concerns about the nature of mathematics, its teaching and learning, and the problem of subjectivity. In particular, I consider Heidegger's notion of positive science and discuss both its applicability to mathematics and its importance to mathematics education. I argue that Heidegger's ontological position is consonant with some sociocultural approaches in mathematics education and that Heidegger's work can shed some light on the problem of knowing and being. Fina...

The December issue of Educational Studies in Mathematics has just been published ( volume 72, number 3 ), and it contains the following articles: Modes of reasoning in explanations in Australian eighth-grade mathematics textbooks , by Kaye Stacey and Jill Vincent Community college students’ views on learning mathematics in terms of their epistemological beliefs: a Q method study , by Denna L. Wheeler and Diane Montgomery Constructing mathematics in an interactive classroom context , by Paul Ngee-Kiong Lau, Parmjit Singh and Tee-Yong Hwa The effects of cooperative learning on preschoolers’ mathematics problem-solving ability , by Kamuran Tarim Students’ perceptions of institutional practices: the case of limits of functions in college level Calculus courses , by Nadia Hardy Mathématiques de la vie quotidienne au Burkina Faso: une analyse de la pratique sociale de comptage et de vente de mangues , by Kalifa Traoré and Nadine Bednarz The challenge of self-regulated learning in mathematic...

The November issue of Instructional Science has been released (Volume 37, Number 6, 2009). Here is a list of articles that is published in this issue: The effects of representational format on learning combinatorics from an interactive computer simulation , by Bas Kolloffel, Tessa H. S. Eysink, Ton de Jong and Pascal Wilhelm Uncertainty and engagement with learning games , by Paul A. Howard-Jones and Skevi Demetriou Are instructional explanations more effective in the context of an impasse? by Emilio Sánchez, Héctor García-Rodicio and Santiago R. Acuña Teacher and student intrinsic motivation in project-based learning , by Shui-fong Lam, Rebecca Wing-yi Cheng and William Y. K. Ma Graduate students’ conceptions of university teaching and learning: formation for change , by Alenoush Saroyan, Joyce Dagenais and Yanfei Zhou

International Journal of Studies in Mathematics Education is a new international peer-reviewed journal within the field of mathematics education. The editors of the journal are from Brazil, and the journal web-site is in both Portuguese and English. The journal also accepts submission of articles in Portuguese, English, French and Spanish. According to their own description of the journal: The journal aims to stimulate reflection on mathematics education at all levels: to generate productive discussion; to encourage enquiry and research; to promote criticism and evaluation of ideas and procedures current in the field It is intended for the mathematics educator who is aware that the learning and teaching of mathematics are complex enterprises about which much remains to be revealed and understood It reflects both the variety of research concerns within the field and the range of methods used to study them. We accept for submission articles in Portuguese, English, French and Spanish. Th...

A couple of new articles have been published online in International Journal of Mathematical Education in Science and Technology . Several are so-called classroom notes (see this link for full list), and then there are these two original articles: Pilot study on algebra learning among junior secondary students , by Kin-Keung Poon and Chi-Keung Leung. Abstract: The purpose of the study reported herein was to identify the common mistakes made by junior secondary students in Hong Kong when learning algebra and to compare teachers' perceptions of students' ability with the results of an algebra test. An algebra test was developed and administered to a sample of students (aged between 13 and 14 years). From the responses of the participating students (N = 815), it was found that students in schools with a higher level of academic achievement had better algebra test results than did those in schools with a lower level of such achievement. Moreover, it was found that a teacher's...

David A. Miller and Stephen J. Sugden have written an article called Insight into the Fractional Calculus via a Spreadsheet . The article was published in the most recent issue of electronic journal Spreadsheets in Education . The article is freely available as a pdf download , but here is a copy of the abstract: Many students of calculus are not aware that the calculus they have learned is a special case (integer order) of  fractional calculus. Fractional calculus is the study of arbitrary order derivatives and integrals and their applications. The article begins by stating a naive question from a student in a paper by Larson (1974) and establishes, for polynomials and exponential functions, that they can be deformed into their derivative using the μ-th order fractional derivatives for 0<μ<1. Through the power of Excel we illustrate the continuous deformations dynamically through conditional formatting. Some applications are discussed and a connection made to mathematics educati...