Dining out with Coeliac Disease : An Analysis of online Message Board Postings on the Social Implications and the Challenges to Live A Normal Life

© 2014 Solomon and McClinchy; This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly citedStrict adherence to a gluten free diet is the only treatment for coeliac disease. Over the past two decades, there has been a societal shift into less home cooking and eating at restaurants has become an important means of social participation creating significant difficulties for people with coeliac disease. This research aimed to explore the issues that people with coeliac disease need to contend with when dining out, their coping mechanisms and the key aspects that facilitate a normal social life through the analysis of online message board postingsPeer reviewe

Safety in numbers: mathematics support centres and their derivatives as social learning spaces

This article reports on data gathered from second and third year mathematics undergraduates at two British universities which have developed Mathematics Support Centres, primarily with a view to supporting skills development for engineering students. However, an unforeseen consequence of the support centres was the mathematics students’ colonisation of the physical space, and the development of group learning strategies which involve a strong community identity. Drawing on a socio-cultural theoretical framework, based primarily in the concept of a figured world, the article explores the students’ perceptions of mathematics learning and their experiences of university-level teaching, focusing on the ways in which they collectively build images of themselves as participants in an undergraduate mathematics community, resourced by the physical safe spaces that they have created, and which they now regard as essential sites of their learning

The incident of the quadratic equations: Recognising exclusion

In this paper we explore the hidden nature of girls’ exclusion from mathematics in a Norwegian lower secondary school. Drawing on ethnographic data from a three-year longitudinal study, we focus on a particular incident of ‘choosing’ a challenging task. Viewing the incident through the lens of Figured Worlds we note how the researcher’s perception of mundane acts in the classroom is expanded by witnessing a rupture within one student’s narrative of the incident. As researcher and researched co-construct events, it becomes apparent that equal opportunity in the form of choice does not necessarily deliver inclusion

Motivational patterns in disaffected school students: insights from pupil referral unit clients

This small-scale study investigated perceptions of the circumstances of pupils registered with Pupil Referral Units. Questionnaires were administered to all pupils registered, covering a range of perceptions of their current circumstances, history and prospects. The questionnaire also contained scales from the Patterns of Adaptive Learning Survey, enabling assessments of pupil motivation. Interviews were conducted with a sample of pupils and practitioners who work with them. These included school teachers, tutorial centre teachers, and service managers. The article explores the variety of views expressed and concludes that there is little evidence to support the claim that disaffection experienced by these pupils is the result of an inappropriate curriculum. Rather, it reflects a deficiency of motivational and coping strategies perhaps not best dealt with in 'out-of-school' contexts

Surprising everyone but herself with her good results: the twin dynamic of invisibility and failure to see

In this paper we explore the co-construction of identity in a Norwegian lower secondary school mathematics classroom. Focusing on one high-performing girl, Sarah, we analyse the role of maledominated performance of "smartness" in her positionality in the figured world of Class A. While Sarah can be simply understood as making herself "invisible" in this dynamic, her teacher's account draws our attention to the impact of gender performance on what she sees and values in her students. We argue that Sarah's positionality is the result of a twin dynamic between girls' cultural invisibility and her teacher's failure to see, indicating a need for greater awareness of girls' situation in mathematics classrooms, particularly whereas in Norway-gender is seen as "no longer an issue"

Teacher development for equitable mathematics classrooms: reflecting on experience in the context of performativity

In this article, we chart the development of one of us—Sue Hough—from a teacher who wanted students to understand to one who gained new critical understandings of student thinking, pedagogy, and the very nature of mathematics. We comment on the role of research interventions and learning communities in this development, with a particular focus on Sue’s encounter with Realistic Mathematics Education and the connections it makes between informal and formal mathematics through the pedagogy of guided reinvention. Development towards teaching that enables all learners to make sense of mathematics requires fundamental changes in pedagogic practice and a reconceptualisation of progress. Bringing about such radical change relies on one further aspect of Sue’s story—the freedom to experiment and learn as a teacher. We note the remoteness of this possibility in a climate of performativity and marketised education, and we discuss the implications of Sue’s journey for our pedagogical responsibilities in professional development today

A Tripartite Cooperation? The Challenges of School-University Collaboration in Mathematics Teacher Education in Norway

One goal of Norway’s new primary teacher education programme of 2010 was improved school placement: the relationship between the teacher education institution, practice schools and pre-service teachers was to be formalized as a tripartite cooperation. However, in the area of mathematics education, cooperation is not straightforward: tensions arise because of pre-service teachers’ prior experience and beliefs, and differences between university college training and school practice. This paper reports on questionnaire data and focus group interviews with first-year pre-service teachers and their mentors following school placement. It illustrates the complexity of the partners hip and its impact on pre-service teachers’ professional development in the area of mathematics.Norges forskningsråd 21226

Developing self-efficacy in teaching mathematics: Pre-service teachers’ perceptions of the role of subject knowledge

Two major concerns in mathematics teacher education are the role of subject matter knowledge and the development of self-efficacy in pre-service teachers. This article brings these issues together in an exploration of the interaction between pre-service teachers’ perceptions of their subject matter knowledge and their accounts of university and placement experiences as potential sources of self-efficacy. Reporting on a group of ten pre-service teachers in Norway, we explore variations in the ways in which they perceived the role of subject knowledge in relation to experience, particularly ‘mastery experiences’, over a period of nearly two years. We suggest that recognition of the role of ‘understanding why’ in mathematics is crucial in the experience of mastery, and that there is a need to focus more on the role of subject matter knowledge in all sources of self-efficacy in teaching mathematics

Safety in numbers: mathematics support centres and their derivatives as social learning spaces

This article reports on data gathered from second and third year mathematics undergraduates at two British universities which have developed Mathematics Support Centres, primarily with a view to supporting skills development for engineering students. However, an unforeseen consequence of the support centres was the mathematics students' colonisation of the physical space, and the development of group learning strategies which involve a strong community identity. Drawing on a socio-cultural theoretical framework, based primarily in the concept of a figured world, the article explores the students' perceptions of mathematics learning and their experiences of university-level teaching, focusing on the ways in which they collectively build images of themselves as participants in an undergraduate mathematics community, resourced by the physical safe spaces that they have created, and which they now regard as essential sites of their learning

Connecting the everyday with the formal: the role of bar models in developing low attainers’ mathematical understanding

Use of the bar model has gained momentum in England in recent years through the introduction of Singapore maths. Yet bar models originating from the Dutch approach known as Realistic Mathematics Education (RME), such as the fraction bar, the percentage bar and the double number line, have been available since the late 1990s. In this paper, we discuss the use of the bar in an intervention with low-attaining students in which we employed the RME approach. RME bases understanding in the everyday, where the role of the bar is to sustain modelling across multiple contexts, building on students’ informal models. We argue that this context-driven ‘bottom-up’ use of the bar is crucial in supporting progress towards formal mathematics, highlighting important issues to consider in the use of bar modelling, particularly with low attaining students. We suggest a consequent need for caution in use of the Singapore bar as a potential ‘top-down’ model