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This paper reports the findings of a meta-synthesis of studies which investigated the ways in which teachers described their pedagogical practices in three different contexts: the Maldives, Australia and Nepal. Each of the studies was focused on making teachers' classroom practices visible in an effort to establish a shared language and understanding of practices relevant to context. We were interested in what teachers say about their teaching practice and the ideas they hold that underpin these acts of teaching. Our analysis, across our respective studies, revealed insights to the questions: how teachers name their practices; how teachers articulate their understanding of these practices; and, how teachers identify priorities for their practice. Insights drawn from our meta-synthesis explore the implications of naming practices and the importance of considering teacher voice in determining visions of effective teaching. What teachers believe and do needs to be taken into account if professional development and reform initiatives are to be enacted in ways that are relevant and sustainable. The findings have implications for improving the quality of education and approaches to teachers' professional development.

The benefits of engaging students in mathematics classroom dialogue have been highlighted (and advocated) in a large body of research studies, most of which were conducted in Western cultural contexts. Whether such research advocacy can be extended legitimately to encompass practice in classrooms situated in other cultural contexts, such as East Asian classrooms, remains a matter for empirical investigation. In this paper, we problematize the assumptions underpinning this advocacy of "mathematical dialogue in classrooms" by revisiting several conceptualizations of the role of language in mathematics classrooms and by considering particular forms of communication in classrooms often undervalued in the research literature. To support such problematization, we draw upon an analysis of classroom discourse in nine classrooms situated in Shanghai, Seoul, and Melbourne from the Learner's Perspective Study. The results of the analysis demonstrate some interesting variations in the extent to which the discursive practice of each classroom afforded or constrained the opportunities for students to speak mathematically, and its consequences for student learning as indicated by student mathematical fluency demonstrated in the post-lesson interviews. Such variations provide insight into the differences in inspirations and cultural values attached to particular types of mathematical performance. We argue that our theories should anticipate application in culturally differentiated settings and be sensitive to the constraints and affordance that culture might place on classroom discourse practices.

Despite increasing number of mainland Chinese students studying in western tertiary settings, there is limited information available on their learning experiences and responses to popular educational practices in these contexts. There is an assumption in the literature that Chinese students respond well to the collaborative demands of groupwork due to the collectivist nature of their culture, however there are few reports to substantiate this claim. This paper reports on mainland Chinese students' perception of groupwork in two Australian tertiary settings. Thirteen students from mainland China were interviewed on their groupwork experiences. All interviews were completed in either Mandarin or Cantonese. Two types of groupwork were identified: assignment groupwork (AGW) and student generated groupwork (SGGW). Three criteria for collaboration: level of interaction, construction of knowledge and a shared goal were used to search for signs of collaborative elements in the Chinese students' recall of their groupwork experience. Indicators of collaboration were identified in the reports of AGWs but were less consistent in SGGWs. The findings of this study suggest that Chinese students perceive out-of-class groupwork in an Australian context as a positive learning experience, reporting enhanced understanding of academic contents, application of knowledge and socializing with other Chinese students. (Contains 1 table.)

Interactive problem solving and learning are priorities in contemporary education, but these complex processes have proved difficult to research. This project addresses the question "How do we optimise social interaction for the promotion of learning in a mathematics classroom?" Employing the logic of multi-theoretic research design, this project uses the newly built Science of Learning Research Classroom (ARC-SR120300015) at The University of Melbourne and equivalent facilities in China to investigate classroom learning and social interactions, focusing on collaborative small group problem solving as a way to make the social aspects of learning visible. In Australia and China, intact classes of local year 7 students with their usual teacher will be brought into the research classroom facilities with built-in video cameras and audio recording equipment to participate in purposefully designed activities in mathematics. The students will undertake a sequence of tasks in the social units of individual, pair, small group (typically four students) and whole class. The conditions for student collaborative problem solving and learning will be manipulated so that student and teacher contributions to that learning process can be distinguished. Parallel and comparative analyses will identify culture-specific interactive patterns and provide the basis for hypotheses about the learning characteristics underlying collaborative problem solving performance documented in the research classrooms in each country. The ultimate goals of the project are to generate, develop and test more sophisticated hypotheses for the optimisation of social interaction in the mathematics classroom in the interest of improving learning and, particularly, student collaborative problem solving.

The major premise of this project is that teachers learn from the act of teaching a lesson. Rather than asking "What must a teacher already know in order to practice effectively?", this project asks "What might a teacher learn through their activities in the classroom and how might this learning be optimised?" In this project, controlled conditions are created utilising purposefully designed and trialled lesson plans to investigate the process of teacher knowledge construction, with teacher selective attention proposed as a key mediating variable. In order to investigate teacher learning through classroom practice, the project addresses the following questions: To what classroom objects, actions and events do teachers attend and with what consequence for their learning? Do teachers in different countries attend to different classroom events and consequently derive different learning benefits from teaching a lesson? This international project combines focused case studies with an online survey of mathematics teachers' selective attention and consequent learning in Australia, China and Germany. Data include the teacher's adaptation of a pre-designed lesson, the teacher's actions during the lesson, the teacher's reflective thoughts about the lesson and, most importantly, the consequences for the planning and delivery of a second lesson. The combination of fine-grained, culturally situated case studies and large-scale online survey provides mutually informing benefits from each research approach. The research design, so constituted, offers the means to a new and scalable vision of teacher learning and its promotion.

Metacognition has been accorded a role in both mathematical problem solving and in the learning of mathematics. There has been consistent advocacy of the need for the promotion of metacognitive activity in both domains. Such advocacy can only be effective if the advocated process is well understood. In this paper we have four goals: to describe a "multi-method" technique developed to study student mathematical metacognition; to set out the structural elements and configuration of a coherent model of metacognition in the domain of mathematical problem solving; to report on the empirical utility (and validity) of this model; and, to report the insights into student mathematical metacognition arising from the research. Multi-Method Interview Tasks are appended. (Contains 4 figures.)

The amount of substance and its unit the mole is a basic concept in chemistry. However, previous research has shown that teaching and learning the concept are challenging tasks for both teachers and students. The purpose of this study was to pinpoint the problems which emerge in the teaching and learning process, and provide integrated suggestions for classroom instruction. By means of videotaping and interviews, the case studies explored how the mole is presented and conceptualized in two secondary classrooms in two different countries, Australia and Taiwan. Data analysis was based on a concept map and focused on how two key ideas were presented in the lessons and perceived by the students: (1) the definition of the mole, and (2) the concept of molar mass. The findings show that during the lessons on the mole, most of the time was spent on solving stoichiometric problems. Conceptually, the number aspect of the mole, that is, Avogadro's number, was emphasized; the concept of molar mass was introduced without meaningfully connecting it to the concept of relative atomic/molecular mass. Although the students were able to solve relevant problems, they could not coherently explain the relations among the concepts. Two critical components for a conceptual understanding of the mole emerged: (1) the number aspect of the mole needs to be justified by its mass aspect, and (2) the connection between molar mass and relative atomic/molecular mass needs to be explicitly explained. The two components provide one explanation for students' algorithmic learning and their confusion in learning about the mole, and serve as concrete suggestions for improving classroom instruction. The study once again manifested the significance of teaching for conceptual understanding in science education. It also exemplifies how a concept map of a specific scientific concept can also be a useful analytical tool in educational research.

This study examines how a class of Grade 7 students employed linguistic resources to explain density differences. Drawing from the same data-set as a previous study by, we take a language perspective to investigate the challenges students face in learning the concept of density. Our study thus complements previous research on learning about density which has mostly focussed on the conceptual challenges. The data consist of transcripts of lessons on density and students' written assignments. Using selected analytical categories from the Systemic Functional Linguistics framework, we first examined students' use of linguistic resources in their written reports of a practical activity. We then compared the language employed by the students with the instructional language, identifying possible links. Our analysis identified specific aspects of language that the students need to appropriate in order to express an understanding of density that aligns with a scientific perspective. The findings from this study illuminate ways by which teachers could assist students in overcoming the linguistic challenges in explaining density differences, which complement those made by existing studies that focus on conceptual challenges.

The content and purpose of written unit plans in mathematics is an under-researched area. In this article, we provide a brief overview of research on teachers' planning processes and the place of mental and written plans. We report on data from a questionnaire completed by 357 teachers from Victorian Catholic primary schools, where we focused on possible elements of written unit plans for primary mathematics, and the relative importance which teachers attributed to these elements. We then discuss 48 written unit plans which were provided to us by primary schools from which the 357 teachers were drawn. There was considerable variation in the length, intended teaching time, and level of specification of key ideas in these plans. We discuss this variation, and some discrepancies between the ratings of teachers of the importance of certain elements and their presence in the plans we examined. We also suggest potentially productive areas of future enquiry.

This case study of a science lesson, on the topic thermal expansion, examines the language demands on students from an integrated science and language perspective. The data were generated during a sequence of 9 lessons on the topic of "States of Matter" in a Grade 7 classroom (12-13 years old students). We identify the language demands by comparing students' writings with the scientific account of expansion that the teacher intended the students to learn. The comparison involved both content analysis and lexicogrammatical (LG) analysis. The framework of Systemic Functional Linguistics was adopted for the LG analysis. Our analysis reveals differences in the meaning and the way LG resources were employed between the students' writings and the scientific account. From these differences, we found the notion of condition-of-use for LG resources to be a significant aspect of the language that students need to appropriate in order to employ the language of school science appropriately. This notion potentially provides a means by which teachers could concurrently address the conceptual and representational demands of science learning. Finally, we reflect on how the complementary use of content analysis and LG analysis provides a way for integrating the science and language perspectives in order to understand the demands of learning science through language.

Insights into teachers' planning of mathematics reported here were gathered as part of a broader project examining aspects of the implementation of the Australian curriculum in mathematics (and English). In particular, the responses of primary and secondary teachers to a survey of various aspects of decisions that inform their use of curriculum documents and assessment processes to plan their teaching are discussed. Teachers appear to have a clear idea of the overall topic as the focus of their planning, but they are less clear when asked to articulate the important ideas in that topic. While there is considerable diversity in the processes that teachers use for planning and in the ways that assessment information informs that planning, a consistent theme was that teachers make active decisions at all stages in the planning process. Teachers use a variety of assessment data in various ways, but these are not typically data extracted from external assessments. This research has important implications for those responsible for supporting teachers in the transition to the "Australian Curriculum: Mathematics."

Under the auspices of its 'Education Revolution', the Federal Labor Government is currently implementing a national curriculum for schools. Representing an important intervention into educational practice and governance, the Australian Curriculum offers a unique research opportunity, providing substantial scope for the examination of the changing systems and school-level practices entailed in large-scale curriculum reform. Research into the Australian Curriculum also presents a valuable opportunity to develop educational research methodologies that attend to the complex and multifaceted processes of curriculum reform, from systems to classrooms. Taking two of the disciplinary towers of modern curricula (English and mathematics) and Australia's two largest jurisdictions (New South Wales and Victoria) as the focus, this article draws on a three-year Australian Research Council Linkage Project to outline an approach to researching major curriculum reform.

Density has been reported as one of the most difficult concepts for secondary school students (e.g. Smith et al. 1997). Discussion about the difficulties of learning this concept has been largely focused on the complexity of the concept itself or student misconceptions. Few, if any, have investigated how the concept of density was constituted in classroom interactions, and what consequences these interactions have for individual students' conceptual understanding. This paper reports a detailed analysis of two lessons on density in a 7th Grade Australian science classroom, employing the theory of Distributed Cognition (Hollan et al. 1999; Hutchins 1995). The analysis demonstrated that student understanding of density was shaped strongly by the public classroom discussion on the density of two metal blocks. It also revealed the ambiguities associated with the teacher demonstration and the student practical work. These ambiguities contributed to student difficulties with the concept of density identified in this classroom. The results of this study suggest that deliberate effort is needed to establish shared understanding not only about the purpose of the activities, but also about the meaning of scientific language and the utility of tools. It also suggests the importance of appropriate employment of instructional resources in order to facilitate student scientific understanding.

This paper reports multi-layered analyses of student learning in a science classroom using the theoretical lens of Distributed Cognition (Hollan et al. 1999; Hutchins 1995). Building on the insights generated from previous research employing Distributed Cognition, the particular focus of this study has been placed on the "public space of interaction" (Alac and Hutchins 2004, p. 639) that includes both participants' interaction with each other and their interaction with artefacts in their environment. In this paper, a lesson from an Australian science classroom was examined in detail, in which a class of grade-seven students were investigating the scientific theme of gravity by designing pendulums. The video-stimulated post-lesson interviews with both the teacher and the student groups offered complementary accounts (Clarke 2001a) that assisted the interpretation of the classroom data. The findings of this study provide supporting evidence to demonstrate the capacity of Distributed Cognition for advancing our understanding of the nature of learning in science classrooms.

The Australian Curriculum: Mathematics encourages teachers to consider seriously the four proficiencies: Understanding, Fluency, Problem Solving and Reasoning. In responding to the reasoning proficiency, many teachers may find that the language of the classroom may well change. In this article, we discuss the meaning given to the term reasoning within the AC:M and elsewhere, share an example of a classroom task with the potential to develop mathematical reasoning, consider the language involved in describing reasoning, and present some survey responses on teachers' current understanding and use of the relevant terms. (Contains 3 tables, 2 figures and 1 footnote.)

We are interested in exploring the processes teachers use when planning. We sought responses from teachers on aspects of their planning from a survey of various aspects of their decisions. We found that, while there is diversity in processes teachers use for planning, a consistent theme was that teachers make deliberative decisions at all stages in the planning process. Likewise teachers make active use of assessment information, especially to address the needs of their students. There are important implications from our findings for those who support teachers in the transition to the Australian Curriculum: Mathematics. (Contains 2 tables.)

In recent years, there has been greater attention in research and professional development work to discussion of the kinds of knowledge teachers need to teach effectively in the mathematics classroom. It seems reasonable that in planning at the school level, teaching team level and then specifically for a given lesson, teachers might have a sense of the most important mathematical ideas on which they wish to focus. In this article, we discuss written statements by teachers in surveys regarding the most important ideas on which they intended to focus in their next teaching topic. There was considerable variation in teachers' capacity to articulate these important ideas. We discuss the implications of this for teacher professional learning and planning. (Contains 1 footnote.)

The Australian Curriculum: Mathematics (AC:M) prompts consideration of planning processes teachers typically use (as a whole school, in grade levels, and at the classroom level). In order to gain insights into the nature of the planning decisions teachers make, Australian teachers drawn from every state and territory were invited to respond to a survey on planning processes, during professional learning programs or voluntarily online through the Australian Association of Mathematics Teachers' website. In this article, we provide background to the overall project in which this survey was situated, and describe the process through which the survey was developed. Subsequent articles in this journal detail some important findings from the survey data. (Contains 1 table and 1 footnote.)

Essential to teachers' planning are decisions regarding what should be taught. Curriculum documents are the most obvious authority. But what is a "curriculum document" for a mathematics teacher in Australia? Are there other credible sources of information that Australian teachers draw on when deciding what to teach? This article examines the responses of a national sample of Australian teachers to a survey examining their planning practices. (Contains 2 figures.)

PBL is described as small-group collaborative learning; however, literature on how collaboration is enacted in PBL contexts is limited. A two-year ethnographic study examined the experiences and responses of Asian students to the obligations of PBL in a Western context. Participant-observation, videotape data, and video-stimulated recall interviews provided insights into collaborative behaviors in PBL classrooms. Even though students recognized that listening and speaking were important to collaboration, speaking was clearly privileged over listening in this PBL setting. A framework was developed that incorporated both collaborative and noncollaborative listening and speaking behaviors. This Collaborative Listening/Speaking (CLS) framework provides a structure for tutors to scaffold the novice learners' collaborative skills, and therefore more effectively facilitate the group's learning through collaboration.

There is an increasing acceptance in the education literature and in classroom settings for "best practice" to be linked with verbal clarification of knowledge and reasoning, ideally in collaborative contexts where students construct both group and individual knowledge. Problem-based learning (PBL) is one such classroom context in which participation is viewed as leading to learning and where the nature of "good" participation is verbal contribution. Students who choose to participate without speaking, or "silent" students, are often seen as failing to learn, and significant tutor time is devoted to encouraging verbal input. This article examines the experience of four "silent participants" (two overseas-educated and two local Australian) in a PBL context. The analysis reported in this article suggests that students' choice to be silent is a consequence of multiple constraints--personal, contextual and cultural--and that silence should not be taken to signify lack of learning. (Contains 2 tables.)

Presents a model of teacher professional growth that views professional development as teacher learning. The model includes four analytic domains in which teacher change occurs, indicates potential relationships among change domains, and identifies mechanisms operating to produce these relationships. The article illustrates the model with data from three Australian studies, noting aspects of school context which can constrain or promote teacher change and discussing short- and long-term change. (SM)

Examines the prevailing assumption that changing assessment can leverage curricular reform. Presents two studies conducted in New South Wales and Victoria in Australia. Reports that congruence between mandated assessment and school-wide instructional practice was found in two states whose high-stakes assessment embodied quite contrasting values. (CMK)

Examines one mode of mathematical communication--student journal writing. The evaluation of the experimental use in one school of journal writing in mathematics demonstrates a link between language and mathematics and suggests a relationship between students' mathematical writings and their perceptions of mathematics. (Contains 21 references.) (Author/MDH)

Examined the quality of responses of six classes of grade six students to four questions requiring multiple and generalized solutions posed under varying conditions. Results indicated that this type of question can be useful in classrooms because students can respond at a variety of levels. (13 references) (MDH)

To understand the role of symptom attribution in treatment-seeking behaviours, survey results of 1356 veterans (age = 38–72 years) were analysed. Controlling for symptom frequency, significant relationships were found for specialist and psychological-related consultations. Those who favoured psychological explanations for symptoms were more likely to attend specialist and psychology-related consultations and filled significantly more prescriptions than people who predominantly explained symptoms by situational factors (normalisers). Veterans who favoured somatic explanations attended more general practitioner consultations than normalisers. Attributional style should be considered part of the constellation of factors influencing healthcare usage. Normalisers, the predominant group, used fewest health services and filled fewest prescriptions; this may have important implications for healthcare considering their tendency to minimise or downplay symptoms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Issues Addressed: Although cannabis use is still illegal in most places around the world, it remains a widely used drug. The recreational use of cannabis has been linked to multiple mental wellbeing issues, including psychosis, depression and anxiety. The objective of this study was to investigate the temporal dynamics of cannabis use in relation to mental health issues.Methods: The current research uses a novel methodological approach, behaviour sequence analysis, to understand the temporal relationship between recreational cannabis use and surrounding issues related to mental wellbeing, in a sample of 61 participants who had written autobiographical accounts online.Results: The results indicated a bi-directional temporal ordering between cannabis use and mood disorders. Cannabis use preceded psychosis and can also exacerbate symptoms of psychosis, depression and anxiety. Findings also suggested that low self-esteem may be a predictor of future cannabis use.Conclusions: Research shows a link between mood disorders and recreational cannabis use. The BSA method can be used in applied settings to map pathways in individuals' life histories. SO WHAT?: The current study shows the sequential links between cannabis use and psychosis, depression and anxiety. Results show there is no single clear pathway and clinical practitioners should focus on a wider range of factors in individual's case histories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The distribution of mental illness information is a crucial element of mental health promotion initiatives. We assessed the receipt and perceived helpfulness of such information in Australia. Data from the Australian National Survey of Mental Health and Wellbeing indicated that, during the year prior to the survey, 33.7% of Australians received mental illness information; of these, 51.2% found it helpful. Among people with a mental disorder, 46.1% received information; of these, 67.4% found it helpful. Non-English speakers and the socially disadvantaged were less likely to receive mental illness information. Older and less educated respondents were less likely to both receive mental illness information and find it helpful. Mental health service users were more likely to receive mental illness information perceived as helpful than those who had not accessed such services. Better targeted information interventions are required to ensure those most likely to benefit receive mental illness-related information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: The impact of medical student psychological distress on academic performance has not been systematically examined. This study provided an opportunity to closely examine the potential impacts of workplace and study related stress factors on student's psychological distress and their academic performance during their first clinical year. Methods: This one-year prospective cohort study was performed at a tertiary hospital based medical school in Melbourne, Australia. Students completed a questionnaire at three time points during the year. The questionnaire included the validated Kessler psychological distress scale (K10) and the General Health Questionnaire-28 (GHQ-28), as well as items about sources of workplace stress. Academic outcome scores were aggregated and correlated with questionnaire results. Results: One hundred and twenty six students participated; 126 (94.7%), 102 (76.7%), and 99 (74.4%) at time points one, two, and three, respectively. 33.1% reported psychological distress at time point one, increasing to 47.4% at time point three. There was no correlation between the K10 scores and academic performance. There was weak negative correlation between the GHQ-28 at time point three and academic performance. Keeping up to date with knowledge, need to do well and fear of negative feedback were the most common workplace stress factors. Conclusions: Poor correlation was noted between psychological distress and academic performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article provides background rationale for the conception and development of an Assessment Alternatives Kit for mathematics. It was designed to support teachers of K-10 to explore a range of possibilities in their own classrooms. (PK)

Purpose: Understanding how veterans appraise their post-deployment experiences could provide insight into better assisting their deployment transitions. We aimed to assess the factor structure of positive and negative post-deployment appraisals in Australian veterans and to examine the resultant factors in their relationship with military stress and psychological health.Method: Questions capturing post-deployment attitudes were developed by the researchers in collaboration with veterans. The questions were administered to 1938 veterans and the results factor analysed. The relationships between post-deployment appraisal, military stress and psychological health were examined using Structural Equation Modelling.Results: A three-factor solution was found for the post-deployment appraisal questions; representing personal development, lack of recognition, and appreciation of life and country. Military stress was associated with the three factors and psychological health. The three factors were weakly to moderately associated with psychological health. Mediation between military stress and psychological health by any post-deployment appraisal factor was minimal.Conclusions: Post-deployment appraisal measures three important attitudes and concerns of veterans after deployment. Military stress is associated with the post-deployment appraisal factors. However, the factors did not mediate the relationship between military stress and psychological health. These factors provide insight into how veterans appraise their complex array of post-deployment experiences, and may provide useful in regard to transitions and integration into civilian life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]