Development of pre-service mathematics teachers’ professional knowledge and identity in working with information and communication technology

This paper describes the work undertaken in a course in communication and information technology in a pre-service program for secondary school mathematics teachers. This course aimed to help pre-service teachers develop a positive attitude regarding ICT and use it confidently. It focused on the exploration of educational software and of the Internet’s potential as a means of research and production of web sites. We discuss how the pre-service mathematics teachers evaluate their work concerning their commitment, difficulties they found, learning they identified, and personal relationship. We also analyse the effects of the course on the development of their professional knowledge and identity

Developing Academic Language In The Context Of A Fourth Grade Mathematics Geometry Curriculum Unit

The research question addressed in this capstone project was: How can a mathematics geometry curriculum unit be organized to support and develop academic language for fourth grade students through meaningful engagement strategies? The author reviewed literature in the areas of English as a Second Language and mathematics and synthesized best practice methods for teaching common to the two disciplines. The author found that explicit teaching, practice, and support of academic language is vital and beneficial for linguistically diverse learners, with attention to word, sentence, and discourse dimensions. Mathematics is rich in language, particularly when lessons are structured to allow students to develop their own understanding. The developed curriculum unit anticipates common possible misconceptions and necessary academic language support structures. The lesson modules include desired results aligned with Minnesota State Standards in Mathematics, an assessment evidence statement that measures academic language development and mathematics concepts, and a learning plan with engaging student-centered learning activities that teachers can implement with fourth grade students

Development of a text reading system on video images

Since the early days of computer science researchers sought to devise a machine which could automatically read text to help people with visual impairments. The problem of extracting and recognising text on document images has been largely resolved, but reading text from images of natural scenes remains a challenge. Scene text can present uneven lighting, complex backgrounds or perspective and lens distortion; it usually appears as short sentences or isolated words and shows a very diverse set of typefaces. However, video sequences of natural scenes provide a temporal redundancy that can be exploited to compensate for some of these deficiencies. Here we present a complete end-to-end, real-time scene text reading system on video images based on perspective aware text tracking. The main contribution of this work is a system that automatically detects, recognises and tracks text in videos of natural scenes in real-time. The focus of our method is on large text found in outdoor environments, such as shop signs, street names and billboards. We introduce novel efficient techniques for text detection, text aggregation and text perspective estimation. Furthermore, we propose using a set of Unscented Kalman Filters (UKF) to maintain each text region¿s identity and to continuously track the homography transformation of the text into a fronto-parallel view, thereby being resilient to erratic camera motion and wide baseline changes in orientation. The orientation of each text line is estimated using a method that relies on the geometry of the characters themselves to estimate a rectifying homography. This is done irrespective of the view of the text over a large range of orientations. We also demonstrate a wearable head-mounted device for text reading that encases a camera for image acquisition and a pair of headphones for synthesized speech output. Our system is designed for continuous and unsupervised operation over long periods of time. It is completely automatic and features quick failure recovery and interactive text reading. It is also highly parallelised in order to maximize the usage of available processing power and to achieve real-time operation. We show comparative results that improve the current state-of-the-art when correcting perspective deformation of scene text. The end-to-end system performance is demonstrated on sequences recorded in outdoor scenarios. Finally, we also release a dataset of text tracking videos along with the annotated ground-truth of text regions

Making Transitions: A Multiple Case Study of Mathematics Classroom Teaching Reform in China

The main purpose of this study is to investigate how teachers implemented teaching reform in secondary mathematics classrooms in China, and to understand the context of teaching transformation in general. Two groups of mathematics teachers were included in this study. One group was involved in a leadership project led by university-based mathematics teacher educators, and the other was engaged in a school teaching experiment led by teacher educators from local education department. In this study, classrooms are viewed as social systems in which the teacher and students are interrelated through communication networks. This study examines the structures, patterns of social relationships, and socio-autonomy of the communication networks. The social relationships are focused on learning goals, social and socio-mathematical norms, and mutual relationships. Socio-autonomy refers to the abilities of the communication networks to adapt and to evolve. A combination of social network analysis and qualitative research methods is employed to analyze the dynamics of the structures and relationship patterns. In addition, the teachers’ perspectives of mathematics, instruction, and experiences, along with associated teacher communities are all examined to understand their impact on teaching practices. The findings have indicated different types of classroom teaching with different learning goals, social norms, and mutual relationships. Overall, the teaching was centered upon students’ problem solving and presentations of solutions. The communication structures in most classroom teaching, however, are lack of dynamics. Constraints placed on communications controlled by the teacher result in linear patterns of communications and dampened emergent and dynamic communications in classroom teaching. Reform efforts seemed not to fully support the development of mathematical insights and creativity. These issues suggest that classroom teaching reform need to address the power relationships between individuals’ development of understanding and socio-autonomy of the class. This research also indicates that teaching approaches are related to what the teachers learned in the associated teacher learning communities. It suggests teacher education need to help teachers change expectations for learning from efficiency and skills to processes and communication dynamics. By embracing uncertainty and better understanding of individual autonomy and letting go of control, innovative transformation happens in classroom teaching

Introduction to location-based mobile learning

[About the book] The report follows on from a 2-day workshop funded by the STELLAR Network of Excellence as part of their 2009 Alpine Rendez-Vous workshop series and is edited by Elizabeth Brown with a foreword from Mike Sharples. Contributors have provided examples of innovative and exciting research projects and practical applications for mobile learning in a location-sensitive setting, including the sharing of good practice and the key findings that have resulted from this work. There is also a debate about whether location-based and contextual learning results in shallower learning strategies and a section detailing the future challenges for location-based learning

Shape exploration in product design: assisting transformation in pictorial representations

The sketching of pictorial representations forms a key technique for professional designers in the generation and exploration of product shape. It allows ideas of shape to be externalised and communicated, but more importantly, sketched pictorial representations can operate to assist designers' creative thinking. While computer aided design tools have a proven capability to support the development of design ideas, there is still much scope to develop computer based tools that support the free-flowing exploratory thinking that characterises shape generation and shape exploration in product design. Far from being a straight-jacket in creative design, shape rules have significant potential to bridge the gap between traditional sketching techniques and modern computational methods of design. This thesis presents an inquiry into the exploitation of shape rules within product design. It includes studies of design sketches by professional designers and these inform the development of a theoretical model for assisting design transformation. A formal model of exploration is proposed with two mechanisms; shape decomposition and shape transformation. This model is applied using pictorial representations which may be seen as the computing equivalent of freehand sketches, and reveals new strategies for systematic shape generation and exploration in product design

Paper 2: Using TI-Nspire to Engage Preservice Mathematics Teachers in an Exploratory Geometry Module

In the mathematics classroom, most preservice mathematics teachers possess basic skills to use technology as an instructional strategy in communicating content standards. However, today’s demands for preservice teachers to engage in a variety of “best teaching practices” in their preservice teaching and edTPA requirements can oftentimes place the acquisition of technical skills and integration of new technology in content curriculum far from the forefront of their minds. Ertmer, Conklin, Lewandowski, Osika, Selo, and Wignall (2003) acknowledged preservice teachers’ desires to gain the adequate technical skills necessary to use technology in teachers’ daily tasks of facilitating and managing their classrooms. They suggested that “in order to translate these skills into practice, teachers need specific ideas about how to use these skills to achieve meaningful learning outcomes under normal classroom conditions” (p. 96). Preservice teachers need guidance and information about “how, as well as why, to use technology in meaningful ways” so they can “develop their own visions for, or ideas about, meaningful technology use” (p. 96). Thus, the instructional aid of technology integration in the mathematics classroom must look to address specific uses of technology to help preservice mathematics teachers build awareness and confidence to implement innovative teaching approaches to enhance student learning