Commercial Arctic shipping through the Northeast Passage:routes, resources, governance, technology, and infrastructure

The Russian and Norwegian Arctic are gaining notoriety as an alternative maritime route connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and as sources of natural resources. The renewed interest in the Northeast Passage or the Northern Sea Route is fueled by a recession of Arctic sea ice coupled with the discovery of new natural resources at a time when emerging and global markets are in growing demand for them. Driven by the expectation of potential future economic importance of the region, political interest and governance has been rapidly developing, mostly within the Arctic Council. However, this paper argues that optimism regarding the potential of Arctic routes as an alternative to the Suez Canal is overstated. The route involves many challenges: jurisdictional disputes create political uncertainties; shallow waters limit ship size; lack of modern deepwater ports and search and rescue (SAR) capabilities requires ships to have higher standards of autonomy and safety; harsh weather conditions and free-floating ice make navigation more difficult and schedules more variable; and more expensive ship construction and operation costs lessen the economic viability of the route. Technological advances and infrastructure investments may ameliorate navigational challenges, enabling increased shipping of natural resources from the Arctic to global markets.Albert Buixadé Farré, Scott R. Stephenson, Linling Chen, Michael Czub, Ying Dai, Denis Demchev, Yaroslav Efimov, Piotr Graczyk, Henrik Grythe, Kathrin Keil, Niku Kivekäs, Naresh Kumar, Nengye Liu, Igor Matelenok, Mari Myksvoll, Derek O'Leary, Julia Olsen, Sachin Pavithran.A.P., Edward Petersen, Andreas Raspotnik, Ivan Ryzhov, Jan Solski, Lingling Suo, Caroline Troein, Vilena Valeeva, Jaap van Rijckevorsel and Jonathan Wightin

The 13th Southern Hemisphere Conference on the Teaching and Learning of Undergraduate Mathematics and Statistics

Ngā mihi aroha ki ngā tangata katoa and warm greetings to you all. Welcome to Herenga Delta 2021, the Thirteenth Southern Hemisphere Conference on the Teaching and Learning of Undergraduate Mathematics and Statistics. It has been ten years since the Volcanic Delta Conference in Rotorua, and we are excited to have the Delta community return to Aotearoa New Zealand, if not in person, then by virtual means. Although the limits imposed by the pandemic mean that most of this year’s 2021 participants are unable to set foot in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, this has certainly not stopped interest in this event. Participants have been invited to draw on the concept of herenga, in Te Reo Māori usually a mooring place where people from afar come to share their knowledge and experiences. Although many of the participants are still some distance away, the submissions that have been sent in will continue to stimulate discussion on mathematics and statistics undergraduate education in the Delta tradition. The conference invited papers, abstracts and posters, working within the initial themes of Values and Variables. The range of submissions is diverse, and will provide participants with many opportunities to engage, discuss, and network with colleagues across the Delta community. The publications for this thirteenth Delta Conference include publications in the International Journal of Mathematical Education in Science and Technology, iJMEST, (available at https://www.tandfonline.com/journals/tmes20/collections/Herenga-Delta-2021), the Conference Proceedings, and the Programme (which has created some interesting challenges around time-zones), by the Local Organizing Committee. Papers in the iJMEST issue and the Proceedings were peer reviewed by at least two reviewers per paper. Of the ten submissions to the Proceedings, three were accepted. We are pleased to now be at the business end of the conference and hope that this event will carry on the special atmosphere of the many Deltas which have preceded this one. We hope that you will enjoy this conference, the virtual and social experiences that accompany it, and take the opportunity to contribute to further enhancing mathematics and statistics undergraduate education. Ngā manaakitanga, Phil Kane (The University of Auckland | Waipapa Taumata Rau) on behalf of the Local Organising Committ

What can be ‘annoying’ about mathematical conventions? Analysing post-exchanges of mathematically competent discursants

International audienceThe study reported in this paper is concerned with mathematical conventions, a discussion on which unfolded among mathematically competent discursants. The data came from a rich online thread, where practicing mathematicians, mathematics lecturers, graduate students and undergraduates at advanced stages of their studies were asked to share mathematical conventions “that are annoying, those that nobody likes but it’s too late to cancel”. Grounded in the commognitive framework, the study aims to delineate some rules that this discussion abided. Two discursive rules are presented herein: one rule calls for the use of the same symbols in different discourse communities to denote the same objects. The second rule appeals to a goodness-of-fit between mathematical objects and their conventional symbols. Some affordances that a discussion on conventions can bring to educational research and teaching practice are sketched

Unconventional didactical choices for the benefit of course instruction: A glimpse into a lecturer’s decision-making

International audienc

What can be ‘annoying’ about mathematical conventions? Analysing post-exchanges of mathematically competent discursants

International audienceThe study reported in this paper is concerned with mathematical conventions, a discussion on which unfolded among mathematically competent discursants. The data came from a rich online thread, where practicing mathematicians, mathematics lecturers, graduate students and undergraduates at advanced stages of their studies were asked to share mathematical conventions “that are annoying, those that nobody likes but it’s too late to cancel”. Grounded in the commognitive framework, the study aims to delineate some rules that this discussion abided. Two discursive rules are presented herein: one rule calls for the use of the same symbols in different discourse communities to denote the same objects. The second rule appeals to a goodness-of-fit between mathematical objects and their conventional symbols. Some affordances that a discussion on conventions can bring to educational research and teaching practice are sketched

Capitalizing on interdiscursivity to support primary school students to bridge the empirical-deductive gap: The case of parity of numbers

International audiencePrevious research has made calls for interventions to assist students in bridging the empiricaldeductive gap. We respond to this call in a larger commognitive study that involved small groups of primary school students who discussed parity of natural numbers with a teacher-researcher. As part of this study, a learning environment was created based on the construct of interdiscursivityelements of task design that afford students to draw on and expand their familiar empirical approaches in situations where deductive arguments are needed. The study aims to explore how interdiscursivity can support students in taking their first deductive steps. In this paper, we analyze the activity of two 8-year-olds to learn how the interdiscursive elements contributed to their discursive growth. The central finding pertains to the activity of the teacher-researcher, who played a key role in realizing the interdiscursive potential of the designed environment

Mathematics learning through a progressive transformation of a proof: A case from a topology classroom

International audienceWe report on an ongoing project in a cross-level topology course, where students have been provided with opportunities to prove the same mathematical statement in different social situations. This paper focuses on a pair of students who proved a statement collaboratively before one of them volunteered to reprove it at the board for the whole class to observe. We offer a commognitive analysis of students' discursive activity in each situation and trace the transformations of their proof throughout the process. This process is discussed with a focus on students' mathematics learning

Math Lessons: From Flipped to Amalgamated, from Teacher- to Learner-Centered

We introduce a collaboration framework for teachers and teacher educators, who are interested in designing learner-centered mathematics lessons that amalgamate instructional videos. The framework is spiral, when each of its rounds consists of four phases: understanding the teaching context, developing a plan of an amalgamated lesson, carrying out the lesson and looking back. The implementation of the framework is expected to foster teachers' technological pedagogical content knowledge. To exemplify the framework in action we present a case of an experienced high-school teacher. The case highlights the complexity of designing learner-centered lessons even for a knowledgeable teacher with predispositions towards integration of technology in the classroom