School of Mathematics and Statistics - Theses
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ItemImproving intellectual and affective quality in mathematics lessons: how autonomy and spontaneity enable creative and insightful thinking( 2005-09)The nature of creative mathematical thinking undertaken by students in classroom settings was studied through analysis of the autonomy and spontaneity associated with these processes. The theoretical lens developed enabled simultaneous analysis of cognitive, social, and affective elements of the creative process, and student responses to successes and failures during their exploratory activity (resilience or optimism). Collective case study was employed, with each case progressively informing the analysis of subsequent cases. The classrooms of teachers who were seen by their school communities to display 'good teaching practice' were selected for study. It was anticipated that such classrooms would provide more opportunity to study creative thinking than classrooms chosen at random. During the research period, each student participated individually in post-lesson interviews that were stimulated by lesson video material. To generate data to study student thinking, and the social and personal influences upon it, students were asked to identify parts of the lesson that were important to them, and discuss what was happening, and what they were thinking and feeling. Through this process, students who explored mathematical complexities to generate new mathematical knowledge were identified. (For complete abstract open document)