Melbourne Graduate School of Education - Research Publications
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ItemAbstracting by Constructing and Revising a 'Partially Correct Construct': A Case Study(Mathematics Education Research Group of Australasia, 2010)This study draws on data from a broader video-stimulated interview study of the role of optimism in collaborative problem solving. It examines the activity of a Grade 5 student, Tom, whose initial constructing activity resulted in a ‘Partially Correct Construct’. Insistent questioning from another group member pressuring for clarification led to Tom developing a ‘more correct construct’ with further potential for revision. This paper raises questions about influences that can stimulate or inhibit construct refinement.
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ItemSymbiosis between creative mathematical thinking accompanied by high positive affect, and optimism(The International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education (PME), 2010-01-01)Video-stimulated post-lesson interviews captured changes in a Grade 5 elementary school student, Tom's, orientation to problem solving. Whilst participating in small group problem solving including reports to the class ('Engaged to Learn' pedagogy), Tom changed from self-focused (Task 1), to group focused (Task 2), and taskfocused (Task 3). He experienced surprise as complexities became apparent in what had appeared to be simple (Task 2), and displayed positive affect during his creative thinking leading to insight (Task 3). Consistent with Seligman's (1995) findings, 'flow' (Csikszentmihalyi, 1992), a state of high positive affect accompanying creative activity was associated with optimism building. Instead of needing to be valued by others to feel successfol, Tom began to internalise his successes as attributes of self.
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ItemNo Preview AvailableAustralia: Significant Characteristics of the School System and the Mathematics Curriculum(Sense Publishers, 2006)In Australia, states and territories regulate their own education systems, however, national benchmarks representing minimum standards for Numeracy (in the areas of number sense, measurement and data sense, and spatial sense) help inform the individual state curricula. Australia has three school sectors: Government, Independent, and Catholic. As data collection in the Learner's Perspective Study (LPS) was restricted to Government schools, this overview focuses primarily on the types of schools from which the Learner's Perspective Study (LPS) data from Year 8 mathematics lessons was collected: Victorian government secondary schools.
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ItemNo Preview AvailableComparing and contrasting methodologies: A commentary(Routledge, 2009-04-15)The term ‘methodology’ is discussed before we consider the methodological contributions of each team of chapter authors (Cobb, Gresalfi & Hodge; Nathan, Eilam & Kim; and Saxe, Gearhart, Shaughnessy, Earnest, Cremer, Itabkhan, Platas & Young) and examine links between them. We generate questions arising from our analyses of the three chapters in this section and formulate views on classroom learning in mathematics that could be researched through complementary analyses. The subsequent discussion of data-collection instruments appropriate to further analyses is informed by our own research perspectives. This commentary concludes with a summary of what we have learnt through comparing the three methodologies and how simultaneously focusing on data from different theoretical perspectives might help to show the way forward in researching the richness of learning in classrooms.
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ItemChildren's mathematical thinking in different classroom cultures(NATL COUNCIL TEACHERS MATHEMATICS-NCTM, 2006-05-01)The relationship between normative patterns of social interaction and children's mathematical thinking was investigated in 5 classes (4 reform and 1 conventional) of 7- to 8-year-olds. In earlier studies, lessons from these classes had been analyzed for the nature of interaction broadly defined; the results indicated the existence of 4 types of classroom cultures (conventional textbook, conventional problem solving, strategy reporting, and inquiry/argument). In the current study, 42 lessons from this data resource were analyzed for children's mathematical thinking as verbalized in class discussions and for interaction patterns. These analyses were then combined to explore the relationship between interaction types and expressed mathematical thinking. The results suggest that increased complexity in children's expressed mathematical thinking was closely related to the types of interaction patterns that differentiated class discussions among the 4 classroom cultures.
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ItemNo Preview AvailableAbstracting in the Context of Spontaneous Learning(SPRINGER, 2007-09-01)There is evidence that spontaneous learning leads to relational understanding and high positive affect. To study spontaneous abstracting, a model was constructed by combining the RBC model of abstraction with Krutetskii's mental activities. Using video-stimulated interviews, the model was then used to analyse the behaviour of two Year 8 students who had demonstrated spontaneous abstracting. The analysis highlighted the crucial role of synthetic and evaluative analysis, two processes that seem unlikely to occur under guided construction.
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ItemNo Preview AvailableLeading Female Teachers in Boys’ Schools.(ACEL, 2008)
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ItemRural school principals’ perceptions of social justice in neo-liberal times: towards a pluralistic notion of rural education(Society for the Provision of Education in Rural Australia, 2007)In this paper I apply the theory of social justice to evidence drawn from interviews with two rural school principals in Victoria. I examine the perceptions of social justice held by these principals to analyse the pressing issues that rural schools and their principals face in their quest to provide a socially-just education. The importance of seeking principals’ responses is based on their crucial position in leading their school culture and in responding to policies that define the educational landscape. In the last two decades, educational policies have been shaped by the dominant vision of restructuring the Australian economy to compete in a tougher international market, replacing the former dominant vision of social justice and equal opportunity with one based on managerialism, productivity and competition. Neo-liberal managerialist discourses and practices of perfomativity, testing and accountability now play a central function in determining principals’ role in schools. These discourses and practices have the potential to affect how principals conceptualise social justice and, in turn, how they apply it to practices in favour of a more socially-just schooling. In this paper, I argue that rural schools still face relevant issues of unjust distribution of resources, participation in policy making and cultural recognition and that rural education needs to engage with a pluralistic view of what social justice is: one that includes three dimensions – distributive, associational and recognitial justice.
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ItemDeveloping a thinking curriculum for Year 5: theory and practice(ACER Press, 2005)In this chapter Jason Pietzner discusses the theories behind his work with the thinking curriculum in his former Year 5 classroom. He examines Bloom’s Taxonomy and Anderson’s revision of this model and then shows how he has distilled them into the Three Storey Intellect model (Gathering/Processing/ Applying). He then demonstrates the usefulness of Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences theory and acknowledges the influence of Lipman’s Philosophy for Children model. The product of his unit of work showing the effectiveness of the approach is included.