Creating Your Own Symbols: Beginning Algebraic Thinking With Indigenous Students

Because mathematics education devalues Indigenous culture, Indigenous students continue to be the most mathematically disadvantaged group in Australia. Conventional wisdom with regard to Indigenous mathematics education is to utilise practical and visual teaching methods, yet the power of mathematics and the opportunities it brings for advancement lie in symbolic understanding. This paper reports on a Maths as Story Telling (MAST) teaching approach to assist Indigenous students understand algebra through creating and manipulating their own symbols for equations. It discusses effective Indigenous mathematics teaching, describes the MAST approach, analyses it in terms of Ernest’s (2005) semiotic processes, discusses its applications, and draws implications for Indigenous mathematics learning

An analysis of at-home demand for ice cream in the United States

Ice cream has been manufactured commercially in the United States since the middle of the 19th century. Ice cream and frozen dessert products comprise an important and relatively stable component of the United States dairy industry. As with many other dairy products, ice cream is differentiated in several dimensions. A censored translog demand system model was employed to analyze purchases of 3 ice cream product categories. The objective of this study was to determine the effect that changes in retail prices and consumer income have on at-home ice cream consumption. The analysis was based on Nielsen 2005 home scan retail data and used marital status, age, race, education, female employment status, and location in the estimations of aggregate demand elasticities. Results revealed that price and consumer income were the main determinants of demand for ice cream products. Calculated own-price elasticities indicated relatively elastic responses by consumers for all categories except for compensated bulk ice cream. All expenditure elasticities were inelastic except for bulk ice cream, and most of the ice cream categories were substitutes. Ongoing efforts to examine consumer demand for these products will assist milk producers, dairy processors and manufacturers, and dairy marketers as they face changing consumer responses to food and diet issues.Nielsen home scan retail data; dairy demand; elasticity; ice cream

Metaphors are good mirrors: reflecting on change for teacher educators

In this paper we discuss the use of metaphor as an educative tool for reflection. In the instance of this paper we use metaphor to reflect on the personal images of change that were used by some women teacher educators to make sense of their professional lives and practices over the last decade. This last decade in teacher education has seen significant institutional and cultural change. The paper discusses the strengths and limitations of the use of metaphor. The different interpretations of these metaphors illustrates how these women have used metaphor for explaining facets of change in their professional lives. The challenge of professional renewal is apparent in the metaphors in the ways that complexity, change, journeys, and movement are indicated. Reflection on change in professional practice needs to be continuous. Use of metaphor in the way described in this paper encourages that ongoing process. <br /

Partnerships for effective teacher renewal

The Quality Teacher Program (QTP) recently introduced by the Commonwealth Government is a three year program that provides funding to strengthen the skills and understanding of those in the teaching profession.In Victoria, The Association of Independent Schools of Victoria (AISV) in response to this initiative, has developed a project entitled &lsquo;School-based Teacher Renewal&rsquo; involving three independent sector specific strategies and one cross-sectoral strategy.One of these strategies, &lsquo;Teacher Renewal Through Partnerships&rsquo; is a strategy which focuses on schools establishing a teacher renewal coordinating team being assisted by a university facilitator to address issues of teacher renewal. Schools were required to develop a Quality Teacher Strategic Plan associated with target curriculum area/s. Integral to this strategy is the provision of an external facilitator to support the teacher renewal coordinating team in each schoolApproximately 46 academic staff from Faculties of Education at Deakin University and The University of Melbourne are working in partnership with AISV across 50 schools on this three year project.This project builds on successful teacher professional development outcomes learned from the previous Commonwealth project, the Innovative Links Between Universities and Schools under the National Professional Development Program (NPDP) from 1994 to 1996.This paper, presented by the Project Directors from Melbourne University and Deakin University will describe outcomes of the &lsquo;Teacher Renewal Through Partnerships&rsquo; program and discuss findings gathered from experiences to date of those involved in this partnership program.<br /

Interview with Troy Cooper

Troy Cooper talks about farming and food in Knox Countyhttps://digital.kenyon.edu/elfs_interviews/1008/thumbnail.jp