Group items tagged

"Conversations about mathematics education in this country pop up frequently in the media - and I have yet to come across anyone who is happy with the way things are in the learning of maths among the nation"s children. Many try to find out what goes wrong by conducting research. South Africa has about 150 researchers in mathematics education, and there are a number of special mathematics chairs of research and development at various universities. Funding foundations are generally very keen to contribute to research, especially if it is linked to development programmes and if some impact can be measured."

"Mathematics and science at school are vital to higher education, skilled jobs, and the national economy. For this reason, CDE has taken a sustained interest in the performance of the South African schooling system in these subjects. This paper summarises the results of four statistical analyses of Senior Certificate and National Senior Certificate results since 1998. Conducted by Professor Charles Simkins, they provide important new insights into the mathematics and science performance of South African schools, and identify key policy issues arising from the research."

In the largest study of its kind, girls measured up to boys in every grade, from second through 11th. The research was released Thursday in the journal Science.

I am just busy catching up on some old bookmarking of ML research articles

InBalance has been been developed by a team of European research and learning institutions.The purpose of the project is to support and develop adult tutors of numeracy and provide structured and engaging materials for learners of several abilities. InBalance is a realistic & systematic methodology based on the needs of individual learners & their practical everyday experiences.The InBalance website presents you with a European Numeracy Framework. It describes in detail European levels of competence in numeracy relating to real life situations. There is also a bank of learning materials & an assessment tool for you to use with your own learners; and an exercise maker which will assist you to create your own learning materials.

Nice article to make a mathematical literacu=y stats lesson out of seing hat our learners are loving their soicla media sites. Could get them to research Mxit adoption....

Here is an exmaple of how students use powerpoint and slideshare to combine their class research project into a comprehensive report for comment by the peers and fans :-). I do wonder how they got everybody to reveal their weights...

Students will investigate the field of architecture as a career choice, with specific research into the use of geometric shapes (polygons) in building design and construction. In the first part of the project the students will use a digital camera to record examples of the use of polygons in building design in their communities. They will present their findings to the class using a PowerPoint slide show. In the second they complete a drawing of a building as per the instructions in the Explain and Elaborate section

Use this free, interactive tutorial to improve your Internet research skills: Tour the best of the web for mathematics. Discover how to search the internet effectively. Judge which websites are worth using....

The NCETM site features articles covering a range of topics raising awareness of research items and professional development opportunities as well as activities and resources to use with learners. Signposting includes: items from NRICH - embedding rich mathematics tasks into everyday practice; Skills for Life UPDATE magazine - raising awareness of content with a numeracy focus; the Get On Campaign - giving news of the latest campaign features on darts and football with links to campaign resources for use by numeracy practitioners; and the 'Quicklinks' which lead to more support for numeracy teachers.

Statistics and probability play an important part in our lives and are particularly useful in helping us make wise decisions. This exercise will help the students see that there are mathematical rules that can effect even our use of the English language. GRADES/SUBJECT: Appropriate for Grades 7 though 12. Mathematics and English language. PURPOSE: This exercise re-enforces the value of statistical research and provides an interesting view of the way people write.

My paper on the agonies and successes of creating an informal online community of practice /learning ecology for mathematical literacy teachers in South Africa. It also explains the tools I used and how it impact(ed) on the community.

This could be a great tool to use with students in the clasrrom. They can research their won dataset and visualise it.

"In previous posts, I have summed up my position on Khan Academy as follows: Khan Academy teaches only one part of mathematics-procedures-and that isn't the most important part. Writing about mathematics, developing a disposition for mathematical thinking, demonstrating a conceptual understanding of mathematical topics are all more important than procedures. That said, procedures are still important, and Khan Academy provides one venue where students can learn them. In the end, I think every young person should have an account there. Even if only one in a thousand or ten thousand benefit, that would be a terrific outcome. "

New article published: Albanian students' motives for preferring certain real-life situations for learning mathematics"

The aim of this study was thus to investigate mathematical literacy in relation to learners' motivations for the contexts they would prefer to deal with in mathematical literacy. The emphasis of the study is to concentrate on learner's written motivations for mathematical contexts. Data were collected using a questionnaire that deals with contexts for mathematics.

The implementation of a mandatory mathematics curriculum in South Africa : the case of mathematical literacy (A thesis paper)

In order to ascertain the real-life situations that teachers, as stakeholders, would find suitable and appropriate to deal with in Mathematical Literacy (a compulsory subject for students who are not doing Mathematics at the Further Education and Training level of the South African education system), we embarked on a study known as the Relevance of School Mathematics Education (ROSME). The principle underpinning this article is that there are times when it is necessary to assess the functionality and quality of questionnaires used to ascertain affective domain issues. The study provides an analysis technique which is not affected by the sample of individuals completing a questionnaire, provided that the instrument meets particular requirements. It thus improves the rigour of measurement. Various statistics obtained in this study showed that the instrument used to determine the real-life situations which teachers prefer for Mathematical Literacy reasonably identifies this variable. However, it is cautioned that much more care needs to be exercised in construction of such instruments. The results also indicated the real-life situations which teachers most and least preferred to be included in Mathematical Literacy, providing useful information for policy-makers and textbook authors on contextual situations to be included in learning materials.