Exploring reasons why Australian senior secondary students do not enrol in higher-level mathematics courses

In this research paper, I present the reasons why senior secondary students elect not to enrol in a higher mathematics course. All Year 11 and Year 12 mathematics students within Western Australian secondary schools were invited to participate in an online survey comprised chiefly of qualitative items. The key reasons espoused by students include an expressed dissatisfaction with mathematics, the opinion that there are other more viable courses of study to pursue, and that the Australian Tertiary Admissions Ranking (ATAR) can be maximised by taking a lower mathematics course. In addition, student testimony suggests that there are few incentives offered for undertaking a higher mathematics course

Exploring Fijian high school students’ conceptions of averages

This paper focuses on part of a much larger study that explored form five (14 to 16 year-old) students’ ideas in statistics. A range of ideas was explored, including the students’ ideas about measures of centre and graphical representations. Students’ ideas about measures of centre were analysed and categories of responses identified. While students could compute mean and median, they were less competent with tasks that involved constructing meanings for averages. This could be due to an emphasis in the classroom on developing procedural knowledge or to linguistic and contextual problems. Some students used strategies based on prior school and everyday experiences. The paper concludes by suggesting some implications for mathematics education

Developing algebraic and didactical knowledge in pre-service primary teacher education

This study analyzes the contribution of a teaching experiment for the development of prospective primary teachers regarding knowledge of algebra and of algebra teaching as well as their professional identity. The case study of a prospective teachersuggests that an exploratory approach combining content and pedagogy supports this development, especially in the need to propose challenging tasks, to provide opportunity for students’ autonomous work and collective discussions and to be attentive to children’s representations and strategies in order to promote algebraic thinking

Moving Toward a Culture of Evidence: Documentation and Action Research inside CAPE Veteran Partnerships

This report is a culmination of three years of study of the impact on effective teaching of educators and artists engaging as partners in action research (inquiry based study of their own practice), in documenting the effects of arts integration on student learning (creating a "culture of evidence"), and in collaborating with other action research teams and with formal researchers to actively investigate qualities of teaching and learning at participating schools (what CAPE calls "layered research")