Search

Place value is one of the 'big ideas' in number and plays a critical role in helping students develop their number sense, problem solving and computation skills. Yet, the elegant simplicity of our place value system belies the abstract nature of the construct. This paper presents data from 606 Year 3-6 students (ages 8-12) from two metropolitan Melbourne primary schools who completed the Place Value Assessment Tool (PVAT). Each student's place value knowledge was categorised according to the Place Value Developmental Progression (PVDP). The results highlight the wide range of understanding in each year level and challenge the efficacy of a number magnitude-based progression in place value.

The professional lexicons of middle school mathematics teachers in communities around the world were documented as part of The International Classroom Lexicon Project. This vocabulary captured teachers' naming of classroom pedagogical practice. Reported in this paper are attributes of the lexicons of teachers from Australia and Chile. A comparison of the lexical items revealed commonalities and differences in the named phenomena and in the schema employed for their organisational structure. The analysis revealed differences attributable to cultural and contextual factors. A categorisation system was developed to classify the complexity of similarity of lexical items of one lexicon with another.

Learning objectives, especially those well defined by applying Bloom's taxonomy for Cognitive Objectives, have been widely recognized as important in various teaching and learning practices. However, many educators have difficulties developing learning objectives appropriate to the levels in Bloom's taxonomy, as they need to consider the progression of learners' skills with learning content as well as dependencies between different learning objectives. To remedy this challenge, we aimed to apply state-of-the-art computational techniques to automate the classification of learning objectives based on Bloom's taxonomy. Specifically, we collected 21,380 learning objectives from 5,558 different courses at an Australian university and manually labeled them according to the six cognitive levels of Bloom's taxonomy. Based on the labeled dataset, we applied five conventional machine learning approaches (i.e., naive Bayes, logistic regression, support vector machine, random forest, and XGBoost) and one deep learning approach based on pre-trained language model BERT to construct classifiers to automatically determine a learning objective's cognitive levels. In particular, we adopted and compared two methods in constructing the classifiers, i.e., constructing multiple binary classifiers (one for each cognitive level in Bloom's taxonomy) and constructing only one multi-class multi-label classifier to simultaneously identify all the corresponding cognitive levels. Through extensive evaluations, we demonstrated that: (i) BERT-based classifiers outperformed the others in all cognitive levels (Cohen's K up to 0.93 and F1 score up to 0.95); (ii) three machine learning models -- support vector machine, random forest, and XGBoost -- delivered performance comparable to the BERT-based classifiers; and (iii) most of the binary BERT-based classifiers (5 out of 6) slightly outperformed the multi-class multi-label BERT-based classifier, suggesting that separating the characterization of different cognitive levels seemed to be a better choice than building only one model to identify all cognitive levels at one time. [For the full proceedings, see ED623995.]

In this paper, we report on the interim findings of a study that seeks to identify the characteristics of children's Critical Mathematical Thinking CMT. Characteristics of CMT were initially generated from a synthesis of relevant research literature and then validated using a case study methodology via trials in early childhood classrooms. This paper provides a framework for CMT distilled from the literature and an illustrative case study of one student to provide tentative evidence that young children's use of CMT capabilities can be identified. The long term aim of this line of research is to explore the potential to promote CMT capabilities in a targeted manner.

Classifying educational forum posts is a longstanding task in the research of Learning Analytics and Educational Data Mining. Though this task has been tackled by applying both traditional Machine Learning (ML) approaches (e.g., Logistics Regression and Random Forest) and up-to-date Deep Learning (DL) approaches, there lacks a systematic examination of these two types of approaches to portray their performance difference. To better guide researchers and practitioners to select a model that suits their needs the best, this study aimed to systematically compare the effectiveness of these two types of approaches for this specific task. Specifically, we selected a total of six representative models and explored their capabilities by equipping them with either extensive input features that were widely used in previous studies (traditional ML models) or the state-of-the-art pre-trained language model BERT (DL models). Through extensive experiments on two real-world datasets (one is open-sourced), we demonstrated that: (i) DL models uniformly achieved better classification results than traditional ML models and the performance difference ranges from 1.85% to 5.32% with respect to different evaluation metrics; (ii) when applying traditional ML models, different features should be explored and engineered to tackle different classification tasks; (iii) when applying DL models, it tends to be a promising approach to adapt BERT to the specific classification task by fine-tuning its model parameters. [For the full proceedings, see ED615472.]

In this paper, the probability content in senior secondary mathematics Victorian curriculum between 1978 and 2016 was classified and compared, by content, context, procedural complexity, the SOLO thinking frameworks and use of technology. While probability continues to form an important and increasing component of the curriculum, it has moved from the popular general mathematics to the specialised subjects. The senior secondary probability curriculum as described by the textbooks, provided students with a variety of levels of complexity and thinking in both 1978 and 2016, although low complexity questions were more common in 2016.

This paper concerns the construction of a bibliography of written materials about Aboriginal science and technology drawn from books, theses, dissertations, scientific and non-scientific journals, conference papers and newspapers etc: in fact, articles about the science and technology that relate in some way to Aborigines, from whatever source, have been included. The articles collected have been listed and classified using Hypercard and major issues and themes have been drawn out of these classifications. It is hoped that the bibliography will be of value in itself and that the categorisation of written materials will clarify the issues. Additionally a brief questionnaire was sent to each of the State Ministries of Education to find out what had been achieved in terms of Aboriginal science curricula by the States, and this is compared with the current first draft of the "National Statement". (Contains 2 tables and 1 figure.)

The MERGA website has a list of the titles of the last 10 years of Australasian mathematics education Masters and Doctoral theses, with linked abstracts. After a discussion about the socially-determined nature of document analysis, this paper reports the results of an interpretive document analysis of the web page and the pages of abstracts, with a focus on (a) numbers of theses, by year and by institution; (b) methodological approaches used; (c) countries where data were collected; and (d) theses topics. Begle's (1979) framework of mathematics education domains is used to categorise 3 descriptors for each thesis. (Contains 10 figures.) [For the full report, "Shaping the Future of Mathematics Education. Proceedings of the Annual Conference of the Mathematics Education Research Group of Australasia (33rd, Freemantle, Western Australia, Australia, July 3-7, 2010)," see ED520764.]

The purpose of this paper is to describe the development of a framework to facilitate the selection and evaluation of picture books that may be useful in promoting and developing mathematical concepts in young children. Three types of mathematical picture books were initially recognised with intercoder reliability of 0.92. Seven categories were identified in the framework: Mathematical content; Curriculum content, policies, and principles; Integration of mathematics content; Mathematical meaning; Mathematical problem solving and reasoning; Affordance for mathematics learning; and Pedagogical implementation. (Contains 1 table.) [For the complete proceedings, "Shaping the Future of Mathematics Education. Proceedings of the Annual Conference of the Mathematics Education Research Group of Australasia (33rd, Freemantle, Western Australia, Australia, July 3-7, 2010)," see ED520764.]

This paper reports on a joint proof of concept project undertaken by researchers from the Flinders University Artificial Intelligence Laboratory in partnership with information managers from the Education Network Australia (edna) team at Education Services Australia to address the question of whether artificial intelligence techniques could be employed to help with creation and consistency of learning resource metadata and improve the efficiency of digital collection workflows? The results show some success with automated subject categorisation on a small sample, and the researchers conclude that automated classification based on artificial intelligence is useful as a means of supplementing and assisting human classification, but is not at this stage a replacement for human classification of educational resources. (Contains 2 tables.)

This paper explores the role of organising data in representing numerical data in an organised way--a skill which does not come naturally to most students. Grade 6 children were given a series of lessons on organising data and then representing the data graphically. It was found that after instruction, more students were able to reorganise the data and produce an organised graph. (Contains 8 figures.) [For complete proceedings, see ED500858.]

This paper summarizes the findings of a study examining the impact of standards-based and curriculum reforms on the role of curriculum materials in educational systems in the United Kingdom, the United States of America, and Australia. Concepts derived from a model of decision-oriented evaluation were applied to define a typology to classify various activities relating to the development, selection, and use of curriculum resources. The study focused on identifying activities to develop, select, and use materials by investigating two areas. First, the activities of publishers' associations and publishing companies in developing new materials to meet the needs of schools in implementing standards-based and curriculum reforms were analyzed to determine their impact on changing practices for selecting and using curriculum resources in educational systems. The findings of the study in the form of various activities relating to the development, selection, and use of curriculum resources were then classified according to categories defined in the typology. Data on the findings are presented in this report. (Contains 17 tables and 6 references.) (SLD)

This paper discusses the legal obligations owed by librarians to the users of their facilities, focusing on the viewing of pornography on the Internet in the public library. The meanings commonly ascribed to the word censorship are presented. Australian federal law that governs the classification of films, videos, computer games, and publications and sets up the requirements related to their access and display is summarized. The guidelines for classification are presented, including the criteria for Refused Classification items, i.e., items that cannot legally be made available. Libraries' obligations under the Online Services Act are addressed, as well as child protection ramifications of Internet pornography in public libraries. Finally, the adequacy of existing policies in libraries is considered, and it is concluded that there are effective ways in which libraries can be both provider and protector. (Contains 26 references.) (MES)

In 1997, the Education Department of Western Australia, in conjunction with the teachers' union, initiated a trial project to establish a career path for teachers. Standards are to be set for the career path for three stages: (1) entry to Level 1; (2) transition from Level 1 to 2; and (3) transition from Level 2 to 3. This paper discusses the research undertaken to establish professional competency standards for the transition from Level 2 to Level 3. The first issue is how to group or categorize teachers. When analysis of a sample of teaching portfolios suggested that establishing categories similar to those used by the National Board of Professional Teaching Standards was not appropriate, alternative groupings were generated based on teachers' descriptions of their context, philosophy, and professional practice. The second issue relates to setting the "standard." As part of the selection process for Level 3, 40 elementary and 40 secondary school teaching portfolios were assessed on the quality of the evidence presented to demonstrate achievement of each of five competencies. Teaching portfolios rated equivalently were analyzed to see if there was any consistency in the professional practices of these teachers. This analysis generated a "standard" for each band of ratings that was then used in determining the appropriate level of professional expertise needed to achieve Level 3 Classroom Teacher status. These issues are discussed in relation to current understandings of the description and assessment of competencies, the development of professional expertise, and standard setting. (Contains 5 tables and 17 references.) (Author/SLD)

The concept of physical and chemical change is far from being the clearest and most self-explanatory concept in the world. If a number of chemists are asked to define physical and chemical change, there may well appear to be a fair degree of uniformity in their answers, until a few examples are suggested. When chemists are asked to place a variety of changes into the category of physical or chemical change, then differences inevitably arise. It is not difficult to demonstrate this by viewing school textbooks and articles about the topic. In spite of this, physical and chemical change is still taught in most in most secondary school courses. The problem arises from the definition and the historical layers of meaning that have grown around the concept, almost by accretion, without teachers being aware of their significance. The purpose of this paper is to describe the answers given by experienced educators to a questionnaire, which attempted to find out what the views of science educators/chemists worldwide about physical and chemical change now are. Four appendixes present: (1) List of Respondents; (2) List of Questionnaires Returned; (3) Physical and Chemical Change: An Information Sheet; and (4) Full Questionnaire: Interview Protocol or Basis for Written Response.

The IADIS CELDA 2012 Conference intention was to address the main issues concerned with evolving learning processes and supporting pedagogies and applications in the digital age. There had been advances in both cognitive psychology and computing that have affected the educational arena. The convergence of these two disciplines is increasing at a fast pace and affecting academia and professional practice in many ways. Paradigms such as just-in-time learning, constructivism, student-centered learning and collaborative approaches have emerged and are being supported by technological advancements such as simulations, virtual reality and multi-agents systems. These developments have created both opportunities and areas of serious concerns. This conference aimed to cover both technological as well as pedagogical issues related to these developments. The IADIS CELDA 2012 Conference received 98 submissions from more than 24 countries. Out of the papers submitted, 29 were accepted as full papers. In addition to the presentation of full papers, short papers and reflection papers, the conference also includes a keynote presentation from internationally distinguished researchers. Individual papers contain figures, tables, and references.

The Plato Program is an innovative and dynamic subject that was introduced to explore "learning how to learn" in Year 7. In response to observations by staff that students lacked critical thinking and research skills, it has metamorphosed into a vehicle for the delivery of information literacy within the curriculum, with a particular focus on electronic information sources. The course is structured using the well-known matrix combining Gardner's Multiple Intelligences with Bloom's Taxonomy, populated by tasks exploring information-based "Essential Questions". (Contains 1 table.)

The Second International Conference on Educational Data Mining (EDM2009) was held at the University of Cordoba, Spain, on July 1-3, 2009. EDM brings together researchers from computer science, education, psychology, psychometrics, and statistics to analyze large data sets to answer educational research questions. The increase in instrumented educational software and databases of student test scores, has created large repositories of data reflecting how students learn. The EDM conference focuses on computational approaches for using those data to address important educational questions. The broad collection of research disciplines ensures cross fertilization of ideas, with the central questions of educational research serving as a unifying focus. This publication presents the following papers: (1) A Comparison of Student Skill Knowledge Estimates (Elizabeth Ayers, Rebecca Nugent, Nema Dean); (2) Differences Between Intelligent Tutor Lessons, and the Choice to Go Off-Task (Ryan S.J.d. Baker); (3) A User-Driven and Data-Driven Approach for Supporting Teachers in Reflection and Adaptation of Adaptive Tutorials (Dror Ben-Naim, Michael Bain, and Nadine Marcus); (4) Detecting Symptoms of Low Performance Using Production Rules (Javier Bravo and Alvaro Ortigosa); (5) Predicting Students Drop Out: A Case Study (Gerben W. Dekker, Mykola Pechenizkiy and Jan M. Vleeshouwers); (6) Using Learning Decomposition and Bootstrapping with Randomization to Compare the Impact of Different Educational Interventions on Learning (Mingyu Feng, Joseph E. Beck and Neil T. Heffernan); (7) Does Self-Discipline impact students' knowledge and learning? (Yue Gong, Dovan Rai, Joseph E. Beck, and Neil T. Heffernan); (8) Consistency of Students' Pace in Online Learning (Arnon Hershkovitz and Rafi Nachmias); (9) Student Consistency and Implications for Feedback in Online Assessment Systems (Tara M. Madhyastha and Steven Tanimoto); (10) Edu-mining for Book Recommendation for Pupils (Ryo Nagata, Keigo Takeda, Koji Suda, Junichi Kakegawa, and Koichiro Morihiro); (11) Conditional Subspace Clustering of Skill Mastery: Identifying Skills that Separate Students (Rebecca Nugent, Elizabeth Ayers, and Nema Dean); (12) Determining the Significance of Item Order In Randomized Problem Sets (Zachary A. Pardos and Neil T. Heffernan); (13) Learning Factors Transfer Analysis: Using Learning Curve Analysis to Automatically Generate Domain Models (Philip I. Pavlik Jr., Hao Cen, Kenneth R. Koedinger); (14) Detecting and Understanding the Impact of Cognitive and Interpersonal Conflict in Computer Supported Collaborative Learning Environments (David Nadler Prata, Ryan S.J.d. Baker, Evandro d.B. Costa, Carolyn P. Rose, Yue Cui, Adriana M.J.B. de Carvalho); (15) Using Dirichlet priors to improve model parameter plausibility (Dovan Rai, Yue Gong, Joseph E. Beck); (16) Reducing the Knowledge Tracing Space (Steven Ritter, Thomas K. Harris, Tristan Nixon, Daniel Dickison, R. Charles Murray, and Brendon Towle); (17) Automatic Detection of Student Mental Models During Prior Knowledge Activation in MetaTutor (Vasile Rus, Mihai Lintean, and Roger Azevedo); (18) Automatic Concept Relationships Discovery for an Adaptive E-course (Marian Simko, Maria Bielikova); (19) Unsupervised MDP Value Selection for Automating ITS Capabilities (John Stamper and Tiffany Barnes); (20) Recommendation in Higher Education Using Data Mining Techniques (Cesar Vialardi, Javier Bravo Agapito, Leila Shafti, Alvaro and Ortigosa); (21) Developing an Argument Learning Environment Using Agent-Based ITS (ALES) (Safia Abbas and Hajime Sawamura); (22) A Data Mining Approach to Reveal Representative Collaboration Indicators in Open Collaboration Frameworks (Antonio R. Anaya and Jesus G. Boticario); (23) Dimensions of Difficulty in Translating Natural Language into First-Order Logic (Dave Barker-Plummer, Richard Cox, and Robert Dale); (24) Predicting Correctness of Problem Solving from Low-level Log Data in Intelligent Tutoring Systems (Suleyman Cetintas, Luo Si, Yan Ping Xin, and Casey Hord); (25) Back to the future: a non-automated method of constructing transfer models (Ming Feng and Joseph Beck); (26) How do Students Organize Personal Information Spaces? (Sharon Hardof-Jaffe, Arnon Hershkovitz, Hama Abu-Kishk, Ofer Bergman, and Rafi Nachmias); (27) Improving Student Question Classification (Cecily Heiner and Joseph L. Zachary); (28) Why, What, and How to Log? Lessons from LISTEN (Jack Mostow and Joseph E. Beck); (29) Process Mining Online Assessment Data (Mykola Pechenizkiy, Nikola Trcka, Ekaterina Vasilyeva, Wil van der Aalst, and Paul De Bra); (30) Obtaining Rubric Weights For Assessments By More Than One Lecturer Using A Pairwise Learning Model (J. R. Quevedo and E. Montanes); (31) Collaborative Data Mining Tool for Education (Enrique Garcia, Cristobal Romero, Sebastian Ventura, Miguel Gea, and Carlos de Castro); (32) Predicting Student Grades in Learning Management Systems with Multiple Instance Genetic Programming (Amelia Zafra and Sebastian Ventura); and (33) Visualization of Differences in Data Measuring Mathematical Skills (Lukas Zoubek and Michal Burda). Individual papers contain tables, figures, footnotes, references and appendices.

The increased use of group work in teaching and learning has seen an increased need for knowledge about assessment of group work. This report considers exploratory research where the SOLO Taxonomy, previously used to analyse the quality of individual responses, is applied to group responses. The responses were created as part of an activity dealing with weather data and analysed for the quality of the description of variation. The research indicated that the hierarchy developed for coding the individual responses could also be used to code the group responses. Group responses were generally found to be of poorer quality than was suggested as possible by the responses of individuals within the group. Factors that may have contributed to the differing quality of the group responses are considered. (Contains 2 tables.) [For complete proceedings, see ED489538.]

This study examined the psychometric characteristics of a 62-item parenting questionnaire completed by parents from the United States, Australia, China, and Russia. Factor analyses yielded three global parenting dimensions for each culture which were consistent with D. Baumrind's (1971) authoritative, authoritarian, and permissive typologies. The global parenting dimensions were subsequently analyzed to assess their internal structures. For each of the three global dimensions, a number of specific parenting practice factors were identified and compared cross-culturally. The internal factors for the authoritative style were: (1) warmth and involvement; (2) reasoning/induction; (3) democratic participation; and (4) good natured/easy going. The factors for the authoritarian style were: (1) verbal hostility; (2) corporal punishment; (3) non-reasoning, punitive strategies; and (4) directiveness. The factors for the permissive style were: (1) follow through; (2) ignoring misbehavior; (3) and self-confidence. Quite similar parenting practice factors were found for authoritative parenting across cultures; for authoritarian and permissive styles there were substantial cross-cultural differences among the specific parenting practices. Factor scores of the global parenting styles and specific practices were correlated with preschool behavioral problem outcomes to assess the validity of the instrument's cross-cultural use. For the United States and Australian families, mother and father authoritativeness and authoritarianism were related to child preschool behavioral problem outcomes. (KDFB)