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In this paper we develop a model for the capabilities required by principals for effective Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) leadership. The model underpinned a large national cross-sectional research and development project across Australian states in both primary and secondary schools. This model is developed via synthesis of research literature across leadership and STEM education. The model consists of five dimensions of principals' STEM capability: (1) STEM discipline-specific and integrated knowledge and practices; (2) contexts; (3) dispositions; (4) tools; and (5) critical orientation. These dimensions represent distinct, but interrelated, capacities required by principals to establish and maintain positive STEM learning cultures within schools. Elaborations have been provided, in the form of capabilities, for each of these dimensions. The model has the potential for shaping principals' STEM leadership development trajectories and structuring targeted professional learning programmes for principals, teachers and other members of the school community.

This study examined the extent to which boys fell into clusters comprised of different levels of motivations and costs. In turn, the antecedents of these clusters and associations with engagement and wellbeing outcomes were considered. Based on survey responses from 168 students across Years 5, 7 and 9 from an all-boys' school in Sydney, Australia, three clusters were identified: "Positively Engaged," "Disengaged," and "Struggling Ambitious." Performance-approach and avoidance achievement goals, mastery classroom goal structure, perceived peer valuing of mathematics and teacher enthusiasm differentially predicted profile membership. Clusters were also found to differ in terms of both wellbeing and engagement, such that students within maladaptive profiles evidenced the most negative outcomes. The study reaffirms prior work, holds implications for addressing student motivation in mathematics, and adds to understanding of the interplay of individual and classroom goal structures in relation to students' mathematics expectancies, values and resultant outcomes.

Quality teaching is the most significant systemic factor contributing to student achievement. Attracting, developing and retaining effective teachers are important goals for Australia as they are for all nations. Debate rages currently about criteria for selection of students into Initial Teacher Education (ITE). The Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (ATAR) is promoted by some commentators as a useful selection measure. The data from six cohorts of students from undergraduate degree programmes at a Melbourne university campus were investigated to evaluate the validity of ATAR as a predictor of academic success and performance on school placement. ATAR was positively related to academic success for students in the three Bachelor of Education Primary cohorts but was weakly related for the three Early Childhood/Primary cohorts. Ratings of performance by associate teachers on placement were unrelated to ATAR for all six cohorts. Given less than one third of students nationally enter ITE on the basis of their ATAR the data suggest that a variety of selection methods and criteria are required and ensuring high standards within IITE courses is the best way to control for quality of graduates.

This article describes a teacher's Maths lesson that focuses on numeracy in health and physical education learning area. In the lesson, the students were learning about Directed Numbers, something they often struggle with and a topic where the teacher finds it hard to explain using real life situations when using addition and subtraction. The teacher began the lesson by outlining what students were expected to achieve. The introduction also included revisiting previous work on how to convert an individual's number of walking paces to kilometres, as well as directions for the activity that was to follow. The teacher wants to emphasise with other teachers that numeracy is not just about number and that there is great potential to address other strands of mathematics within all learning areas.

This article describes a project that focuses on numeracy in secondary school mathematics. During the course of the project a teacher had the chance to develop and trial new tasks and styles of teaching and learning numeracy. She became increasingly comfortable with using more extended tasks for learning mathematics. However, she believes that it is beneficial if larger projects are made up of self-contained sub-tasks that allow students to move towards smaller, achievable goals. Surveys of students indicated that many of the class appreciated the variety of tasks that they had the opportunity to tackle, and many were quite happy to complete exercises from the textbook interspersed with these other tasks to practise their skills. Throughout the course of the project the teacher also had an increased focus on developing activities that provided a critical orientation towards the use of mathematics. It also became obvious how vital the role of positive dispositions is in encouraging students to try approaches to solving a problem for themselves rather than relying on the teacher to provide all the answers.

This article describes a project that focuses on how a Society and Environment unit could develop required numeracy. This is more of an integrated unit organised around a theme rather than a Society and Environment unit that required specific aspects of numeracy. Suggested data sources for examining students numeracy development included (1) a timeline; (2) a reflective piece of writing that demonstrated students' understanding of large numbers, developed through considering the number of people who died in the war (data collected from the War Memorial excursion); and (3) a trip planner that contained details of how to go back to either a war site or place of origin (or similar). The numeracy model has enabled a teacher to see connections between the elements that comprise numeracy, and she can see how to embed numeracy in her teaching practice in a meaningful way. As a result of participating in this project, the teacher has come to realise that numeracy involves more than mathematical knowledge and skills. She now appreciates the role of contexts in providing opportunities for students to develop and use mathematics skills and knowledge for a purpose.

This article presents a lesson that focuses on numeracy. In the lesson, students were tasked to find the best path for a new expressway. The purpose of the activity was for students to gain an appreciation of the complexities associated with designing public infrastructure and to put into practice the mathematical skills. This article also describes a numeracy model that could be a powerful tool when thinking about designing units and activities, because it provides a means of looking at numeracy from different perspectives. By reflecting on and reviewing a teacher's practice, teachers will also find a way to incorporate all aspects of the numeracy model.

The purpose of this article is to explain the authors' model of numeracy and outline how the project was conducted. The idea of numeracy is a relatively recent one. The term was first introduced in the UK by the "Crowther Report" (Ministry of Education, 1959) and was defined as the mirror image of literacy, but involving quantitative thinking. Another early definition proposed by the Cockcroft Report (Cockcroft, 1982) described being numerate as possessing an at-homeness with numbers and an ability to use mathematical skills to cope confidently with the practical demands of everyday life. Although numeracy is a term used in many English speaking countries, such as the UK, Canada, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand, in the USA and elsewhere it is more common to speak of quantitative literacy or mathematical literacy. The authors argue that a description of numeracy for new times needs to better acknowledge the rapidly evolving nature of knowledge, work, and technology. (Contains 1 figure.)

This paper draws on a one year study of three secondary school classrooms to examine the nature of student-student-technology interaction when working in partnership with computer algebra systems (CAS) on mathematical modelling tasks and the classroom affordances and constraints that influence such interaction. The analysis of these data indicates that CAS enabled technologies have a role to play as provocateurs of productive student-student-teacher interaction in both small group and whole class settings. Our research indicates that technologies that incorporate CAS capabilities have the potential to mediate collaborative approaches to mathematical enquiry within life-related mathematical tasks. (Contains 1 table and 4 figures.)

Building on Shulman's (1986, 1987) construct of Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK), Ball and colleagues (Ball, Thames & Phelps, 2008) created a model of mathematical knowledge for teaching that differentiates between subject matter knowledge and PCK. The model categorises different types of knowledge within these two domains. In this research Ball et al.'s framework was used to code the knowledge used and connected by a teacher, Jenny, as she taught geometry to her class of 10-11-year-old students over six lessons. The categories of the framework were useful in classifying the knowledge Jenny used though specialised content knowledge was difficult to demark from common content knowledge. There was high connectivity between the Specialised Content Knowledge (SCK), Knowledge of Content and Students (KCS) and Knowledge of Content and Teaching (KCT) Jenny activates. Her responsive teaching style impacted on the nature of the knowledge she needed and on her learning about her students. The article demonstrates that the risk of categorising knowledge, and attempting to measure forms of it, may result in the neglect of the connective and transformative nature of how this knowledge is activated in action.

In this article we describe and evaluate processes utilized to develop an online learning module on mathematical modelling for pre-service teachers. The module development process involved a range of professionals working within the STEM disciplines including mathematics and science educators, mathematicians, scientists, in-service and pre-service secondary mathematics teachers. Development of the module was underpinned by Bybee's five E's enquiry-based approach and Goos et al.'s twenty-first century numeracy model. Module evaluation data is examined in relation to the quality of pre-service teachers' learning experiences and interview data from the study is analysed through the lens of 'boundary crossing'. While the evaluation of the module was generally positive, aspects that required improvement were also identified including more meaningful inclusion of pre-service teachers and other stakeholders in the development process.

Nonword reading measures are widely used to index children's phonics knowledge, and are included in the Phonics Screening Check currently implemented in England and under consideration in Australia. However, critics have argued that the use of nonword measures disadvantages good readers, as they will be influenced by their strong lexical knowledge and err by making word errors (e.g. reading flarm as "farm"). We tested this claim by examining the errors made by a group of 64 Year 2 children when reading aloud a set of simple nonwords. We found that stronger word readers were less likely to make a word error response than weaker word readers, with their most prevalent type of error being another nonword that was highly similar to the target. We conclude that nonword reading measures are a valid index of phonics knowledge, and that these tests do not disadvantage children who are already reading words well.

The characteristics that typify an effective teacher of mathematics and the environments that support effective teaching practices have been a long-term focus of educational research. In this article we report on an aspect of a larger study that investigated "best practice" in mathematics teaching and learning across all Australian states and territories. A case study from one Australian state was developed from data collected via classroom observations and semi-structured interviews with school leaders and teachers and analysed using Valsiner's zone theory. A finding of the study is that "successful" practice is strongly tied to school context and the cultural practices that have been developed by school leaders and teachers to optimise student learning opportunities. We illustrate such an alignment of school culture and practice through a vignette based on a case of one "successful" school.

More than 20 years ago, the concept of using the Montessori Method as a treatment for dementia was discussed in the pages of "Montessori Life" (Vance, Camp, Kabacoff, & Greenwalt, 1996). At that time, research was just beginning on this topic. Since that initial article, the use of the Montessori Method with older adults with dementia has taken root on an international scale. This article reviews the development and dissemination of this concept and discusses plans for its continued evolution.

Build-to-rent (BTR) is an important pathway for rental housing supply across the cities of Australia. The discourse has become more prevalent as stakeholders seek government support to expand the sector to provide, amongst other reform measures, affordable rental accommodation. This paper examines the effectiveness of BTR as a pathway to affordable housing supply in Australia and identifies the additional reforms needed to increase that supply further. Interviews with key stakeholders were used to assess the success of the asset class to date and how it is likely to perform in increasing affordable rental housing supply, as well as what additional reforms may be required to expedite supply. The paper found that while BTR aims to scale up rental housing supply, its limitations in its present form demonstrate the need for additional reforms. At present, unfavorable taxes, inner-city locational attributes, and ultramodern services make the asset class a high-end housing model. Experts posit that BTR rental prices are justified given the quality amenities and the 24/7 onsite professional management. While it is a premium product, several BTR projects in Australia have included portions of those projects for affordable housing. The study concluded that BTR can generate affordable housing outcomes in Australia. As more developments take place across the private sector, several regulatory reforms in land release and taxes are needed to produce a sizable portfolio of affordable BTR. Without government support and regulation through additional supply-side incentives, development and recurrent holding costs will remain high, making BTR unaffordable to many urban residents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Numeracy is a fundamental component of the Australian Curriculum as a General Capability in each subject. Here, we report on an aspect of a larger project that aims to provide insight into how teachers can assist their students to develop a critical orientation to life-related situations through a cross-curricular approach to numeracy. Specifically, we draw on data collected via lesson observations and semi-structured teacher interviews exploring the use of mathematics in a critical fashion within the teaching of two subjects outside of mathematics--English and social education. Our investigation revealed that attention to the details of a rich model of numeracy can support the framing of such activities but that time, experience, and initial intent for the learning activity are factors which shape the effectiveness of teachers as designers of such tasks, especially in relation to a critical orientation to numeracy.

In this article Vince Wright and Jacqui Tjorpatzis share findings from a teaching experiment that involved the implementation of a Year 3 unit of work on decimals. They describe the activities involved, and the challenges and benefits of introducing decimals to young children.