This investigation is primarily concerned with the In-Service Education and Training (INSET) needs of primary school mathematics educators. The research is grounded in the proposition that in order for senior primary mathematics educators to keep abreast with the current knowledge explosion and rapid rate of technological growth, they are under serious obligation to improve their expertise, knowledge and skills in mathematics teaching and learning through INSET. Pre-Service Education and Training (PRESET) serves only as preparation for entry into the teaching profession and cannot last the whole teaching career. INSET is thus necessary for the senior primary mathematics educator’s continuing education. In this investigation an attempt is made at establishing a framework for INSET and mathematics educators. It is hoped that these theoretical frameworks will enable mathematics educators to cope with the changing needs of senior primary mathematics education. There is no doubt that the developments of senior primary mathematics education and INSET in the United Kingdom can have a profound effect on the senior primary mathematics education in South Africa. The extent to which the developments in the United Kingdom influences the educational initiatives presently being undertaken in South Africa will depend upon those who teach senior primary mathematics and those who are responsible for the provision of INSET of senior primary mathematics educators. The past South African discriminatory policies led to numerous iniquities in the provision of mathematics materials and development of mathematical human resources. Consequently, there is a large number of unqualified and under-qualified mathematics educators especially amongst Blacks in South Africa. It is through INSET that this condition can be rectified. A questionnaire survey revealed that senior primary mathematics educators are fully conscious of the importance and significance of INSET. The recommendations made for the INSET of primary school mathematics educators based on the literature survey and the empirical investigation are: the need to establish a national and provincial policy for the INSET of primary school mathematics educators; there must be a concerted effort to establish school focused INSET; many of the methods of INSET courses emphasizing the participative approach needs to be explored; the value of teachers’ centres as exciting brokers for new ideas and as networks for personnel proves invaluable and finally, pivotal to the INSET of primary school mathematics educators is the need for them to update their in-depth knowledge of mathematics. There is no doubt that the INSET of primary school mathematics educators is a crucial factor in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN). It is clear from this research that INSET for both academic and professional upgrading of the senior primary mathematics educators and the improvement of mathematics teaching and learning I the primary school is only limited by one’s imagination. / Dissertation (MEd)--University of Pretoria, 2006. / Humanities Education / MEd / Unrestricted

In the majority of the schools in the Eastern Cape, South Africa, teaching and learning takes place in the second language, English, of both teachers and learners. The purpose of this research was to elicit the perceptions of teachers in multilingual mathematics classes about language issues that they encounter and to ascertain whether they could experientially learn the theory of dialogic teaching through an intervention in order to introduce dialogue in practice in their classes. The effect of the intervention on teacher practices was qualitatively observed and the effect of the teacher practices on learner reasoning competence, numeracy competence and English language competence was quantitatively tested by using validated pre- and post-tests. The study follows a mixed method concurrent triangulation design with both quantitative and qualitative results. Two cohorts of students/teachers studying for qualifications at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University centres throughout the Eastern Cape expressed their opinions about language challenges and solutions through questionnaires, reflective writing and poetry. A cohort of BEd Honours (Mathematics and Science) students experienced a semester long intervention on the theory and practice of dialogic teaching, particularly exploratory talk, and were tasked to introduce the practice into their multilingual mathematics classes in the form of reported action research. The next phase of the study focussed on the practices of three teachers and their grade seven multilingual mathematics learners who were observed and tested over a period of nine months. The following year the observations and testing were repeated with one teacher and his grade seven learners to ascertain whether the intervention would result in similar findings. iv The results enhance the validity of the Vygotskian claim concerning the relationship between language use, social interaction and reasoning development. In classes where there was evidence of dialogic practices the learners collaborated in groups using code-switching and their main language. Their reasoning, numeracy and English skills test scores improved statistically significantly. Teachers were able to give voice to their deep-felt emotions through poetry. They felt that the devaluing of isiXhosa had resulted in the loss of learners’ main language literacy competencies and consequent loss of cultural capital; however they considered it necessary to develop English competence in the learners, even if it was at the expense of developing mathematical competence. The introduction of exploratory talk in their home languages served the dual purpose of promoting the value of isiXhosa in an academic environment as well as enhancing mathematical reasoning. It appears that when teachers focus on developing language as a tool for reasoning, significant improvements in learners’ problem solving competences occur. When the language used is the main language of both teachers and learners both mathematical understanding and cultural identity are enhanced. The study concludes with a suggestion for a model for future interventions to train teachers to introduce dialogic practices in multilingual mathematics classes.

The Department of Education was tasked by Government and the Department of Labour to develop learning programmes which would provide skills to learners. The National Certificate Vocational (NCV) programmes were developed, which provided an alternative to completing a National Senior Certificate (NSC). The NC(V) programmes consist of seven subjects of which Mathematical Literacy is offered as a fundamental subject. The NC(V) programmes were officially implemented in 2007 using the FET College sector as a vehicle. FET College educators had to be skilled and re-skilled to teach the various new subjects. One of the new subjects at the time was Mathematical Literacy. Selected educators were provided with a short course to prepare themselves for the implementation of Mathematical Literacy. This study is aimed at investigating the pedagogical experiences of educators who were, and are still part, of the implementation of Mathematical Literacy in the FET College sector. A phenomenological approach was followed in order to capture the lived experiences of the educators. Three educators were selected from different FET colleges within the Eastern Cape Province. A qualitative research was done, making use of interviews. The research found that educators have divergent pedagogical experiences. They make use of different strategies to implement teaching and learning within their classrooms. Though there are good experiences, the research has managed to point out that there are some frustrations too. Recommendations are made with regard to teaching and learning strategies, as well as the emerging trends that surfaced during the research.

Different forms of professional development online are becoming increasingly common for teachers and the aim of the thesis is to contribute knowledge about online professional development for mathematics teachers and the relationship between professional development, educational policy, and mathematics teaching practice. In the thesis, professional development refers to organized professional development in terms of university courses. The thesis consists of four studies, each of which has been presented in the form of an article. The four studies together explore transnational and national policy discourses, meaning-making activities that can be distinguished in online professional development, discourses pertaining to mathematics teaching in the classroom and in the subsequent seminar discussions in the course, and teachers’ experience of professional development online. The different arenas have been explored using the concept of discourse with reference to Fairclough, Gee, and Sfard. The term ”discourse” refers primarily to communication and language in use. The result of the studies indicates that the participants have not been offered enough opportunities to reflect on how or whether the use of several concepts and everyday life connections really deepened the students’ understanding of the mathematical content. Moreover, the analysis of the interviews with the participants shows that it was difficult for them to deepen their reflections in the synchronous communication online. There is a lack of reciprocal participation and reflection in the conversation and it is hard for the participants to get an idea of how the others respond to their messages. When a participant has completed his or her message the next speaker continues with a new message and as a result, the communication often takes a new direction instead of allowing in-depth reflection.

This study explores the ways in which teachers' interventions interact with and occasion the growth of students' mathematical understanding. Two 'cases' were documented, and these form the two strands of my research. The first strand concerns data collected in my own high school classroom at a time when I was a full-time teacher of mathematics in a small, rural secondary school in the United Kingdom. The second strand concerns data collected in a mathematics classroom in a large, urban high school in Vancouver, British Columbia. The data consist of videotaped lessons in each of the two classrooms, videotaped interviews with students from both strands of the data, copies of students' work from both strands, videotaped interviews with the Vancouver teacher, and my own journal entries. Analysis of the data, which is described in six stages, resulted in the generation of fifteen themes to describe the teachers' actions-in-the-moment. Three of these themes are distinguished from the others as teaching styles, as contrasted with the remaining twelve teaching strategies, and a number of the teaching strategies are clustered within the three teaching styles. The notion of a 'continuum of telling' is developed, upon which the three teaching styles lie, and this continuum is explored in order to probe the ways in which teachers' interventions interact with the growth of students' mathematical understanding. The ways in which teachers' interventions occasion the growth of students' mathematical understanding is probed through an integration of detailed traces of the students' growth of understanding with contemporaneous considerations of the teachers' strategies and styles. Implications to be drawn from these analyses, both for the research community and for teaching and learning, are discussed. I also share my reflections on my own growth as a teacher and as a researcher that I have experienced as a result of participating in, and conducting, this study. / Education, Faculty of / Curriculum and Pedagogy (EDCP), Department of / Graduate

Orientador: Dione Lucchesi de Carvalho / Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Faculdade de Educação / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-27T12:30:29Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 GoncalvesJunior_MarcosAntonio_D.pdf: 7234019 bytes, checksum: 033616069cae738395a0ecbc5937dd10 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015 / Resumo: De 2008 a 2010, recebi, em minhas aulas de matemática, alunos de um curso de licenciatura que cursavam o Estágio Supervisionado II. Supervisionei-os em seu estágio e orientei-os em seu Trabalho Final de Curso. Tal processo me levou a desenvolver com eles um trabalho conjunto, olhando nossas aulas numa perspectiva de investigação-ação e colaboração. Assim, juntos, escrevemos um diário de aula descritivo e reflexivo sobre as aulas em todas as etapas do estágio: observação, semirregência e regência. Passados alguns anos, passei a perscrutar esses diários de aula, procurando investigar esse processo de formação, narrando-o, contando sobre o processo de constituição identitária dos futuros professores, descrevendo o trivial simples do dia a dia da sala de aula, bem como as tensões da prática de colaborar e investigar a própria prática. Em certa altura, por figurar como personagem nas histórias que contava, dei-me conta de que não investigava os estagiários, mas, sim, a mim mesmo, minhas contradições, minhas identidades no papel de professor de matemática, de supervisor (formador de professores) e de pesquisador em Educação Matemática. Desse modo, desenvolvi uma investigação sobre mim mesmo, por meio de uma pesquisa narrativa em que meus "eus" são objeto de estudo. Por meio de uma conversa comigo mesmo, procuro construir uma narrativa como forma de compartilhar uma experiência, de produzir uma experiência e como forma de compreender o vivido em relação à formação de professores de matemática durante o estágio supervisionado / Abstract: Between 2008 and 2010, I received prospective mathematics teachers in my math classes who were attending Student Teaching II, a course in a program that prepares mathematics teachers. As their student teaching supervisor, I also was their Final Project advisor. Together, with those student teachers, we approached a perspective of action research and collaboration in our teaching practice. Thus, we wrote a descriptive and reflective class diary regarding all student teaching periods: Observation, Pre-teaching and Teaching. After a few years, I began to peering into those class diaries inquiring this teacher preparation process by narrating it, by giving an account about the prospective teacher's process of identity construction, by describing the commonplace's everyday life of our classes and also the tensions of this collaborative practice of investigate our own practice. Unexpectedly, once I was a character in the stories I was telling about what we experienced, I realized that I was not only investigating the future teachers, but myself, my contradictions, may identities as a mathematics teacher, as a cooperating teacher, as a Mathematics Education researcher. So I made a self-study by a narrative inquiry about my 'selves'. By talking with myself I wrote a narrative as a way to share an experience, to create an experience and as a way to understand what we live in this process of become a teacher during the Student Teaching Course / Doutorado / Ensino e Práticas Culturais / Doutor em Educação

In order to implement more science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) into K12 classrooms, it is important to find out whether teachers are comfortable with this pedagogy. To determine teachers' current self-efficacy of STEM pedagogy, teachers in a southern state in the United States were asked to enlighten researchers into this phenomenon. Participants were K12 teachers (n = 119) from a public school district undertaking a district-wide STEM initiative. A measure of STEM teacher self-efficacy and a demographic questionnaire were administered online to participants. STEM teacher self-efficacy data were analyzed, along with demographic data, using descriptive discriminant analysis (DDA) and canonical correlation analysis (CCA). Results suggest some demographic variables are more predictive of STEM self-efficacy (gender, grade level taught, feelings of administrative support, and professional development sessions attended) than others (whether or not gifted courses are taught, age, and length of teaching experience. This data should be used by school administrators that seek to begin or improve STEM pedagogy in their schools.

No description available.

This study focused on the evaluative listening practices of four teachers who participated in an algebra professional development involving lesson study. This instrumental case study operationalizes the enactment of teacher listening followed by teacher questions and responses to define listening-to-question. Also, questioning-to-listen is operationalized as the enactment of purposefully posing questions to posture oneself to listen to students' mathematical thinking. Because of the tacit aspect of teacher listening and the visibility of teacher questioning, interrelating listening and questioning affords teachers an accessible point of entry into developing listening practices. In response to participants wondering as to when evaluative listening is appropriate in the mathematics classroom, this study discusses six instances of teaching excerpts along a continuum of listening orientations from directive to observational to responsive. The results indicate positive aspects of evaluative listening towards an observational and responsive listening stance. Results of the study also confirm a reliance on low-order gathering information questions as the predominant type of teacher question posed in mathematics teaching. This study reveals the necessity of contextualizing teacher questions to inform appropriate uses of evaluative listening. Future professional development should consider emphasizing positive aspects of evaluative listening in mathematics teaching.

This research paper is a description and analysis of a test devised to measure knowledge of the four mathematical operations at the 6th grade level.