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By tracing roughly 200 years of the formation of American school subjects, this paper complicates some of the self-evidence for calls to adapt school subjects according to complex health concerns, more recently amplified by COVID-19. To do so, the paper diagrams a counter-memory of three key amalgams of health related to the makings of school mathematics and reading-as-literacy: balancing mind–body-spirit-matter-nation networks, scientizing a hygiene of instruction for 'ethnic' minds, and reconfiguring bio-psycho-social adjustment – all pursued as problems of duration, intensity, and distance from differently dynamic and/or racializing norms. Throughout, we draw attention to how both universalizing and ethno-specific orthodoxies and their proposed alternatives have produced school subjects as self-evident strategic sites for addressing health concerns that invite underappreciated dangers today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is intended to provide a source of critical and theoretical reflection on the current mathematics educational objectives for Indigenous students in Australia, which are premised on acceptance of underlying concepts of 'equity'. It is not the intention of this paper to identify 'how' Indigenous knowledge can be positioned within mathematics curricula, as this would entail a philosophical inquiry much deeper than has been afforded thus far. The intent here is a consideration, facilitated through the lens of key concepts of Foucault, of some of the boundaries currently shaping the ways in which this positioning is being influenced in the mathematics, albeit neoliberal education context. Acknowledging the interplay between the social, and unconsciously shaped adoptions of what can be considered truth; knowledge; and therefore power, is a first step toward developing the openness of heart and mind needed to make real and transformative changes to education for future societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we report an exploratory investigation of the types of assessment in a variety of high school subjects that best predicted subsequent success at university in those subjects. In social sciences and the humanities, internal (school-based) assessment was a better predictor of university success than external, examination-based assessment, whereas the converse was true for mathematics and the sciences. A plausible interpretation of these findings, and one that warrants further research, is that approaches to assessment that recognize differences in the knowledge structures of disciplines at the point of university transition could be a significant factor in better preparing students for success at university. There are other plausible explanations, which we also explore. If further research validates our conjecture regarding the importance of aligning the disciplinary learning and assessment, we will have identified a potentially powerful mechanism to use the motivating force of assessment to enhance learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Learning to teach out-of-field is a challenge that many teachers worldwide face at some time in their career. Whether they are motivated to seek formal professional development as additional qualifications in this area, however, depends on many factors. Alignment between the specific professional development needs of out-of-field teachers and the planned learning experiences is essential to maximise sustained learning and applicability to teachers' classrooms. This paper reports on a government-funded program designed to support teachers teaching 'out-of-field' in science and mathematics. The initial design of the program drew on existing literature on effective teacher professional learning. Using the theoretical lens of 'boundary crossing' this paper reports on the perceived discontinuities that teachers 'brought with them' in order to understand where the potential for learning lay, and compared this to teachers' perceptions of their changed practice. Growth in teachers' confidence and relational understandings of content, pedagogy and curriculum was evident. Implications for future programs to support out-of-field teachers are provided. Teaching out of field (TOOF); Professional Learning (PL); Professional Development (PD) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Trends in curriculum reform recognise the need to develop skills and competencies in addition to specifying what knowledge should be taught and when. However, a balance between skills and knowledge is sometimes difficult to achieve. In this paper which takes mathematics as the focus, we consider reform currently underway in Wales, from the perspective of a 'knowledge approach' and from the perspective of the Successful Futures report which is, we argue, driven more by a skills approach at the heart of which are 'four purposes': developing young people as ambitious, capable learners; enterprising, creative contributors; ethical, informed citizens; and healthy, confident individuals. Our interest is in the contribution that mathematics makes to the four purposes; and contribution that the four purposes make (or do not make) to the development of a school mathematics curriculum. After outlining the background and context, the paper consults literature and experts to consider what mathematics is and how the learning of mathematics can be seen to fulfil the four purposes. The study contributes to understanding the difficulties of re-contextualising school subjects from the academic disciplines and proposes that operating with a curriculum driven by big ideas or overarching statements places higher demands on teacher knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is indisputable that one of the factors connected to improvements in the quality of education is the implementation of relevant curricular reform that is pertinent to the culture and needs of the given country. This study aimed to comprehensively investigate how the adaptation from an exogenous curriculum was attempted through analysing the three mathematics curricula for the years 1983, 2004, and 2015 that have been applied after independence, reports and policy papers issued by the Ministry of Education (MINED), and interviews with technical officials involved with the curriculum revision in 2015. The results show that Mozambique has been steadily and appropriately moving away from an exogenous curriculum in a cycle of 10 years through the accumulation of their own experiences. The series of observations that we attained could be relevant to other African nations from the viewpoint of transitioning away from an exogenous curriculum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses a framework established by one of the author's in a previous study and refines it to develop a rubric for mathematics tutor training in third-level education. The paper further opens the discussion on the necessity of, and practical methods for, providing high quality, efficient tutor training at third-level. Models of mathematics teacher knowledge are unanimous in stating that solely possessing strong subject matter knowledge (SMK) is not sufficient for one to be deemed to be a good teacher. Despite the necessity of high quality tutoring at third-level, past research indicates that though tutors' SMK is usually of high quality, their ability to transform their knowledge so that students will understand the content, as well as their general teaching skills (e.g. board work, speech), often has room to improve. This paper discusses the development of the rubric and its use in a mathematics tutor training programme at third-level. The tutor training programme was found to lead to improvements in multiple elements of the tutors' teaching. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the policy ‘roles’ adopted by teachers enacting policy in a department. It draws on a longitudinal study of two secondary mathematics departments endeavouring to make deep change aligned with a demanding curriculum policy. The study validates aspects of an existing typology, demonstrates the existence of a variety of policy ‘critics’ and adds a category of ‘survivor’ teacher, showing the role can have considerable impact on enactment. The paper argues for an extension to a group construct of ‘policy role’, here at a department level, and shows that as teachers struggle to marry the constraints of the range of policies to which they are subject with the time and effort needed to maintain deeply espoused professional values, an adopted group role can serve either to support or constrain individual teacher efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Mathematical reasoning and tools are intrinsic to science, yet the close and dependent relationship science has to mathematics is not reflected in either school education or science education research. This paper asks what the barriers are to a mutually beneficial relationship between the two disciplines. A two-phase qualitative interview study was used to explore the relationship between school science and mathematics education through the perspectives of science and mathematics education policy-makers and of teachers in departments which are unusual in collaborating. In total there were 36 participants. Interview data were analysed using thematic analysis. Findings show that there is an asymmetry in the dependency between school science and mathematics: science is dependent on mathematics but the reverse is not true. We discuss three consequences of this asymmetric dependency: there is greater benefit for science from any collaboration; 'maths blame' can arise from science teacher frustration; and science educators may believe they should have some ownership of the mathematics curriculum. Asymmetry of dependency, and therefore of benefit, will make it very difficult for mathematics and science to work together in a way which is genuinely mutually beneficial. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The political importance of mathematics in post-16 education is clear. Far less clear is how mathematics does and should relate to vocational education. Successive mathematics curricula (e.g. core skills, key skills) have been developed in England with vocational learners in mind. Meanwhile, general mathematics qualifications remain largely disconnected from vocational learning. Following a brief historical survey of mathematics within vocational education, the paper presents findings from a nested case study of student groups in three large Further Education colleges in England. The primary unit of analysis herein is student groups learning Functional Mathematics in two vocational areas: construction and hairdressing. We show how approaches to organising teaching, developing connected curricula and classroom pedagogy tend toisolateorintegratemathematics from/with the vocational experience.Integratedapproaches are shown to impact positively on student engagement and attitudes to learning mathematics. The paper concludes by discussing the potential impact of academic qualifications displacing vocationally relevant mathematics. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper contains a description of my experiences flipping undergraduate mathematics and statistics courses for the first time with some advice for any fellow novice flippers. This paper discusses ways to start small and build up to a completely flipped class over the span of a few terms with advice on what technology to use including software and hardware. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Inquiry-based pedagogies have a strong presence in proof-based undergraduate mathematics courses, but can be difficult to implement in courses that are large, procedural, or highly computational. An introductory course in statistics would thus seem an unlikely candidate for an inquiry-based approach, as these courses typically steer well clear of proof, have a list of required topics, and depend critically on computational software. On the other hand, the American Statistical Association (ASA) has long advocated the sort of active and exploratory class design that in many respects parallels traditional inquiry-based learning (IBL). This paper reports on the author’s recent attempt to implement an inquiry-based course in introductory statistics that fuses established IBL techniques with the specific pedagogical recommendations of the ASA. A signature feature of this course is that many of the inquiry-based activities are explicitly tied to computer work in the open source language R. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The importance of actively engaging in mathematics discourse in order to learn mathematics is well recognized. In this paper, I use Basil Bernstein's concepts of pedagogic discourse to document and analyse academic learning time of students in Years 8 and 9 at a suburban lower secondary school: in particular, for what proportion of class time students reported being academically engaged, their explanations for this engagement and how they felt about the discourse. It was found that many students had disengaged from mathematical endeavour as a result of the failure of the instructional discourse either to engage students or to serve the purpose of developing discipline-specific content knowledge. The reasons for this relate to the overemphasis on mundane mathematics resulting in some students lacking the cognitive tools to engage with the concepts and having neither the intrinsic nor instrumental motivation to persist with secondary school esoteric mathematics. The implications for mathematics curriculum development are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Three years ago our mathematics department rearranged the topics in second and third semester calculus, moving multivariable calculus to the second semester and series to the third semester. This paper describes the new arrangement of topics, and how it could be adapted to calculus curricula at different schools. It also explains the benefits we have seen both for our math majors and for majors in other departments, and how we have dealt with the challenges that we have encountered. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Children experience numerous types of learning transitions throughout their educational lives physically (changing schools) and substantively (moving through different key stages in school), and daily (in moving between subjects). One transition that is frequently overlooked within the British education system is that from the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) usually completed at the age of 16 to Advanced Subsidiary Level (AS Level) usually completed at the age of 17. This case study addresses this issue by focusing on students’ perceptions and experiences of the transition between GCSE and AS Level mathematics. It involves a small qualitative study of 28 students from a post-16 college in the UK and uses questionnaires and semi-structured interviews to ascertain students’ views of their transition in studying mathematics at a higher level. The evidence suggests that many students struggle with the transition from GCSE to A Level making AS Level Mathematics inaccessible for many students. Ways of addressing the difficulties experienced by students are discussed with implications for teachers, students and policy-makers in the hope of supporting smoother learning transitions to advanced level study for all. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]