M.Ed. / Infusing Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) into the teaching and learning of Mathematical Literacy Located in the qualitative research paradigm, this study was conducted in eight Gauteng Department of Education schools in the Ekurhuleni North District 6, in Gauteng South Africa and aimed to investigate the use of ICTs in the teaching and learning of Mathematical Literacy. This study focused on how Mathematical Literacy teachers use ICTs to enhance their teaching and learning. In addition, teachers’ attitude, ICT competency as well as the challenges that they face in using ICTs to enhance the teaching and learning of Mathematical Literacy was investigated. Not only is knowledge of ICTs important but the competence of ICT users, namely teachers and learners requirements need to be illuminated through extensive and intensive research. For this reason, this study could, despite its limitations, pave the way for far more elaborate studies to be conducted. This study will contribute towards an understanding of teachers’ experiences of the use of ICTs in South African classrooms. The need exists for teachers to be trained in computer literacy skills and technology skills as well as for school management and the Department of Education (DoE) to provide the necessary support that is deemed essential for the successful use of ICTs in the teaching and learning of Mathematical Literacy. The findings of this study suggests that unless school management and the DoE providethe necessary training and support for teachers, the likelihood of attaining the goal of all learners being ICT literate by 2013, may not be realised.

Magister Educationis - MEd / The use of contexts in school mathematics is receiving much attention both nationally and internationally. This as well as the scarcity of research focusing on the topic stimulated me to research the contexts preferred by learners of mathematics. The large-scale project is called the Relevance of School Mathematics Education (ROSME) project. The current study essentially deals with that section of the larger project which investigates the issues and situations that learners in grades eight, nine and ten would prefer to deal with in mathematics. Broadly, this study focuses on the contexts preferred by grade 8, 9 and 10 learners as a domain in which to embed school mathematics. / South Africa

Magister Educationis - MEd / Mathematical Literacy has a dual meaning in South Africa. On the one hand it alludes to an understanding of the role of Mathematics in the real world. On the other hand it refers to a subject that is taken by students who generally do not do well in Mathematics and who do not wish to do a pure Mathematics course, This research focuses on the identification and investigation of errors, misconceptions and alternative ways of working in the responses of students in the final grade 12 Mathematical Literacy examination. The aim was to identify the errors, misconceptions and alternative ways of working and to discuss possible reasons for these errors and misconceptions. This aim was governed by the principle that feedback to students and teachers form a vital component in the teaching and learning process. This analysis only focused questions pertaining measurement in Mathematical Literacy. An analytical framework was constructed based on common errors and misconceptions identified by various researchers’ in the field of Mathematics. This analytical framework was used to classify and analyse the errors, misconceptions and alternative ways of working in Mathematical Literacy. The analysis was done using document analysis on a randomly selected sample of Mathematical Literacy scripts taken from across all education districts in the Western Cape. Great care was taken to prevent bias and cross checking was done by peers to ensure that the categories of errors were agreed on. The results of the analysis revealed that the errors identified for Mathematics are common to those of Mathematical Literacy. The findings in this project suggest that the analysis and feedback of errors and misconceptions may help to improve teaching and learning in Mathematical Literacy.

Magister Educationis - MEd / The study is located within the project: Relevance of School Mathematics Education (ROSME) of the Department of Didactics at the University of the Western Cape. The research is undertaken in the belief that Mathematics enables creative and logical reasoning about contextualised problems in the realm of the physical and social world as well as in the discipline mathematics itself. Relevance of school Mathematics has the implied notion of contextual issues. This research attempts to investigate the contextual issues that teachers have to deal with in Mathematics education. Given the results of the TIMMS report, this research aims to investigate, through comparison, the context preferences between a selected group of practicing teachers in South Africa and those of their counterparts in South Korea.

This study addresses the question of whether or not pre-service teachers are ready and prepared to use and teach the highly-specialized language of each discipline. The disciplinary languages present teaching and learning challenges due to their lack of parallels in the daily language (Shanahan & Shanahan, 2008). Additionally, the languages of the disciplines are rarely taught and are commonly acquired through an isolated representation of words without a situated meaning within the theory (Gee, 2002). The knowledge of the particular ways of reading, writing, listening to, and talking in the content areas provides opportunities for students’ apprenticeship within the disciplines required for success in higher education contexts (Dobbs, Ippolito, and Charner, 2017). Moreover, this study addresses the question of how future teachers develop disciplinary knowledge and skills. The purpose of this case study was to investigate how mathematical literacy is shaped and defined by the experiences, language, and disciplinary practices of pre-service teachers and experts in mathematics. This overall aim was unfolded by three guiding research questions: 1) What do the Experiences of Pre-Service Teachers and Experts in Mathematics Reveal about their Understanding of Mathematical Literacy? 2) RQ 2. How do pre-service teachers and experts in mathematics use language when solving mathematical problems? and 3) What literacy practices do pre-service teachers and experts in mathematics utilize when presented with modules that require mathematics problem-solving? To structure the elements of analysis for the participants’ responses, I adopted the theoretical support from the emerging disciplinary literacy framework, the novice-expert paradigm, and the tenets of M. K. Halliday’s functional linguistic theory (i.e., Systemic Functional Linguistics; [SFL]). Four faculty in the Department of Mathematics and four pre-service teachers in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at a large Midwest university agreed to participate in this case study. For the data collection, I asked the participants to participate in two sessions. In the first sessions, the participants responded to a semi-structured interview. Afterward, in a second session, the participants solved modules of mathematical problems following three protocols: a think-aloud, a silent-solving, and an oral-explanatory. The results of the participants’ responses to the semi-structured interview and the three protocols indicated that their experiences as learners and teachers of mathematics are tied to their definitions of literacy and disciplinary literacy. The SFL analysis showed that for the experts of mathematics, mathematical problem-solving is a more abstract and cognitive practice. The pre-service teachers’ registers indicated that mathematical problem-solving is experienced as more concrete and real practice. The unique literacy practices that these participants displayed showed the strong connection between language, literacy, and mathematical thought.The implications of this study are discussed in terms of the importance of language and disciplinary literacy in preparation for future teachers as they progress in their course of study within their teaching education programs.

Thesis (M.Ed.)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2010.

Thesis (M.Ed.)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2010.

Bakalauro darbe analizuojami VIII klasių nedidelių specialiųjų ugdymosi poreikių turinčių mokinių, besimokančių bendrojo lavinimo mokykloje, matematikos gebėjimai bei raštingumas. Suformuluota hipotezė, jog tikėtina, kad nedidelių specialiųjų ugdymosi poreikių turinčių mokinių, besimokančių bendrojo lavinimo mokykloje, matematiniai gebėjimai atitinka Nacionalinio mokinių pasiekimų tyrimo testų vertinimo instrukcijoje aprašytą patenkinamą pasiekimų lygmenį. Tyrime dalyvavo 40 VIII klasių nedidelių specialiųjų ugdymosi poreikių turintys mokiniai, besimokantys bendrojo lavinimo mokyklose. Kontrolinio matematikos testo metodu tirta, kaip nedidelių specialiųjų ugdymosi poreikių turintys mokiniai geba pritaikyti turimas matematikos žinias, spręsdami uždavinius ir kokie yra jų gebėjimai. Tyrimu nustatyta, kad VIII klasės nedidelių specialiųjų ugdymosi poreikių turinčių mokinių žinios ir gebėjimai atitinka matematikos programoje nurodytus minimalius reikalavimus, tačiau šios žinios nėra tvirtos, mokiniai ne visada gebėjo jas taikyti praktinėje veikloje sprendžiant uždavinius. Todėl beveik visose užduotyse buvo daroma klaidų. Išanalizavus tyrimo rezultatus pastebėta, kad geriausiai moksleiviams sekėsi atlikti geometrijos turinio srities uždavinius, spręsti aritmetines eilutes bei kitus lengvesnio pobūdžio veiksmus, kuriuose buvo pateikti atsakymo variantai. Kiek sunkiau mokiniams sekėsi atlikti tuos uždavinius, kuriuose reikėjo skaičius kelti laipsniu, rasti pradinę prekės kainą ir... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / Mathematic and mathematical literacy are very important parts of personality and of all society. There are things which make an influence on human daily life, work and others. These things are important in education too because schoolchildren have to know that these subjects are necessary not only now but it will be need in the future too. The bachelor work deals with schoolchildren of 8th classes and who have small special educational needs. The purpose of investigation was to explore mathematical abilities of children with small special educational needs. It is hypothesized, that probably children’s with small special educational needs who learn in comprehensive school mathematical abilities adequate achievement level of satisfactory which was written in National schoolchildren achievement, in instruction of investigation’s evaluation tests. Forty schoolchildren with small educational needs of 8th classes participated in this investigation. The respondents were selected from Šiauliai, Skuodas, Kupiškis comprehensive schools. They had to work a sums which were taken from National schoolchildren achievements investigation in 2007. The results of investigation showed that schoolchildren with small special educational needs don’t have enough information of mathematic, so their mathematical abilities are not good too. Some results of worksheet were comparable with normal schoolchildren of the same age. Results of these people were better because they were done less mistakes... [to full text]

<p>The National Curriculum Statement introduced mathematical literacy officially in 2006. Learners in general perform poorly at mathematics in South Africa but there is strong belief that learners should graduate from schools sufficiently literate to deal with the mathematical issues they will encounter in out-of-school situations. Based on this, this study is an investigation of the contexts, which grades 8 &ndash / 10 learners would prefer to engage with mathematics. The aim of this study was thus to investigate mathematical literacy in relation to learners&rsquo / motivations for the contexts they would prefer to deal with in mathematical literacy. The emphasis of the study is to concentrate on learner&rsquo / s written motivations for mathematical contexts. Data were collected using a questionnaire that deals with contexts for mathematics.</p>

This thesis answers the question of whether and to what extent the goals of PISA align with the Manitoba Government’s goals and priority action areas, and whether the published results of PISA 2012 provide information that addresses the Manitoba Government’s education goals and priority action areas, within the context of mathematics. This thesis provides a qualitative analysis of three PISA 2012 documents, and explores and compares Manitoba PISA 2012 achievement data to Manitoba grade 9 mathematics credit achievement data for English and Français program students, EAL and Aboriginal students to determine whether and to what extent the goals of PISA align with the goals and priority action areas of Manitoba Education and Training, and whether the published results of PISA 2012 provide information addressing the goals and priority action areas of Manitoba Education and Training, within the context of mathematics. / February 2017