MERGA33: Shaping the Future of Mathematics Education

Keynote Speakers

Professor Dr Marja van den Heuvel-Panhuizen Freudenthal Institute of Mathematics & Science Education Utrecht University The Netherlands

Marja van den Heuvel-Panhuizen is professor of mathematics education at the Freudenthal Institute for Science and Mathematics Education, Utrecht University, the Netherlands. She applies herself to the further development of the didactics of mathematics as a scientific discipline. Her research interests, which largely focus on the area of primary school mathematics, lie with instruction theory for mathematics education, curriculum development and professional development. Her special interest is assessment. Other key topics of her research activities are gender difference in mathematics education and the use of didactical models to support the learning of mathematics. Presently, she is involved in research on the use of picture books to support kindergartners’ learning of mathematical concepts, the use of ICT for teaching primary school students to deal with variables, and the use of dynamic tools in e-assessment to identify weak students’ learning potential. She has worked on a number of national and international research projects, including comparative and evaluative studies, and design research. Many of these projects involve the assessment of students’ understanding of mathematics. In the winter term of 2004-2005, she was a visiting professor at Dortmund University. From November 2005 to the end of 2009, she was a visiting professor at the Institut fuer Qualitätsentwicklung im Bildungswesen (IQB) at Humboldt University Berlin, where she was involved in a national project aimed at the evaluation and implementation of the standards for primary school mathematics in Germany.

Presentation Topic:

Reform under attack: Forty years of working on better mathematics education thrown on the scrapheap? No way!
What comes after a reform of mathematics education? It is beginning to look as if the answer to that question is: War. In the late nineties of the previous century a so-called math war overran the United States, starting as a reaction to the reform-based curriculum and teaching approach in California. Presently, we have a similar situation in the Netherlands. The attack concentrates on primary education. The focus of the assault is both on what students should learn, and the didactical methods used. Without any evidence from research the main principles of Realistic Mathematics Education (RME) are labeled as didactical blunders. According to the newspapers, mathematics should not be taught in context, informal strategies should be avoided because they confuse children, progressive schematization is leading to a long, unnecessary detour and understanding comes automatically after training. Moreover, it is stated shamelessly that children do not need to think. The main content to be learned in primary school must consist of written algorithms.
I will discuss what RME stands for, and what mathematics education the reform-attackers have in mind. Other points that I will discuss are the possible factors that could have triggered this war move, and what other countries can learn from the attack of the reform in the Netherlands. War or no war, life goes on. The further development of RME does not stop. To show the viability of RME, I will conclude with some recent studies that are opening new ways to improve mathematics education in primary school, instead of going back to mathematics education as it was forty years ago.

Robyn Jorgensen (Zevenbergen) has worked in the area of equity and mathematics education for two decades. Completing her doctoral studies at Deakin University, she has continued to research the intersection of practice, equity and mathematics education across a range of settings from early childhood settings, through to school and post-compulsory settings, and into workplace contexts. Her work has been particularly focused on the ways in which mathematics education practices are implicated in the construction and reification of social and cultural differences. In particular, the work focuses on working-class, Indigenous and/or rural and remote contexts and the intersection of these areas. She has held 8 ARC grants and has published widely in a wide range of publishing arenas.   Her work is strongly focused on practice and seeks to understand and address the ways in which practices can be changed to address structural inequalities in the field of mathematics education. The work draws heavily on sociological theories, particularly those of Bourdieu, to frame the understandings emerging from the diverse range of projects. In 2009, she took up a position with the Nyangatjatjara Aboriginal Corporation based in Central Australia.

Presentation Topic:

Structured Failing: Reshaping a Future for Marginalised Learners

Learners from particular backgrounds have a greater chance of failing school mathematics than their peers from mainstream, middle-class backgrounds. A popular mythology is that this is due to some innate ability and one which has considerable acceptance in school mathematics. This standpoint preserves the hegemony of school mathematics and perpetuates its status, while reifying the structured failing of too many students. In this presentation I will propose a model for analysing the structured failing of students who come from particular social, cultural, regional and language backgrounds.  Increasingly, policy makers, educationalists, researchers and the wider public recognise that there is something inherent in mathematics education (and schooling) that works against the success of some students.  The solution cannot be found in looking from a mathematical lens but must be much broader if increased access to mathematics education is to be a reality of the future.

For this presentation, I draw on a particular case that encapsulates many of the most extreme elements of educational disadvantage – poverty, remote location, English as a foreign language, cultural diversity and Aboriginality – to provide a lens for understanding the complexity of coming to learn school mathematics. In so doing, I illustrate the need for a greater understanding of the intersection of various factors that limit the opportunities for success. The objective of this paper to provide a model that will challenge current practice and move to a more holistic model for conceptualising research, practice and policy in mathematics education that may enable greater access to mathematics and schooling for the most disadvantaged students.

Professor Robyn Jorgensen (Zevenbergen) Griffith University Queensland

  

Barry Kissane Murdoch University Western Australia

Barry Kissane is a mathematics teacher educator in the School of Education, Murdoch University, Western Australia, having recently completed a term as School Dean. He has had significant interests for many years in all aspects of mathematics education, particularly the place of technology, especially calculators, in school mathematics. Apart from a few months working in Indonesia and two years studying in Chicago and working on the University of Chicago School Mathematics project, he has spent his working life in Western Australia. He has written, or co-written, a number of books for secondary school mathematics students, including several concerned with the use of graphics calculators, a series concerned with lower secondary school algebra and a Year 11 textbook for algebra and statistics, as well as papers in educational journals for mathematics students and their teachers related to the effective educational use of various graphics calculators. His work has focused on understanding the potentials for technology to support mathematics education and inform mathematics curriculum development. Barry has held a number of honorary professional positions, including President of the Australian Association of Mathematics Teachers, President of the Mathematical Association of Western Australia, Member of the Council of the Australian Association of Mathematics Teachers, Vice-President of The Mathematics Education Research Group of Australasia, Executive Editor of The Australian Mathematics Teacher, and member of the editorial panels of The Australian Mathematics Teacher, The Australian Senior Mathematics Journal, and The Electronic Journal of Mathematics & Technology.

Presentation Topic:

Technology, Research and Practice in Mathematics Education
The past two decades have seen extraordinary developments of technologies of potential value to mathematics education, including a range of software (such as dynamic geometry systems, graphing software, statistics software and computer algebra systems), a range of devices (such as scientific and graphics calculators, desktop computers, iPods and interactive whiteboards) and a range of environments (such as computer laboratories, microworlds, the Internet and learning management systems), all in various combinations. While there are many hopes, aspirations and opinions on the appropriateness of particular technologies for particular purposes, obtaining credible and helpful evidence on such matters has been difficult; indeed, many researchers have noted the difficulties of studying what is clearly a moving target. In a world in which simplistic views of research abound (as in suggestions or inferences that research will provide the evidence upon which decisions are made), in which decisions by curriculum developers and classroom teachers are subject to a range of influences (including financial, commercial, political and ideological), and in which communications between different educational interest groups are rarely productive, it is hard to see the best way forward. In this presentation, I will attempt to survey some of the achievements and problems of research on technology in mathematics education, in order to understand the limited impact so far of research upon practice and to suggest how we might collectively do better to productively connect technology development, educational research and classroom practice for mathematics education.