Educational Assessment, Evaluation, and Research Commons^™

Mathematical Mindsets: Fostering Student Engagement And Positive Mindsets Through The Use Of Challenging Tasks, Alison Hall

2021-2030 ACER Research Conferences

This paper explores the planned use of challenging mathematical tasks. These tasks provide the opportunity for students to improve mathematical thinking by working on problems that they do not yet know how to answer. This research involved a heterogeneous class of year 3 students from a Catholic parish primary school in the northern suburbs of Melbourne. A rubric was also developed to use in conjunction with these tasks, to support discussions with students, broaden their strategies in finding solutions and thereby improve their conceptual understanding. These pedagogical approaches were found to support the improvement of both students’ conceptual understanding in …

Karmel Oration: Excellent Progress For All: A Function Of Year-Level Curriculum Or Evidenced-Based Learning Progressions?, Dianne Siemon

2021-2030 ACER Research Conferences

Excellent progress for all students is an ambitious but necessary goal if we are to improve the life choices of all students. At the moment, we are not serving all our students well despite the best efforts of teachers. We need to look further afield to the curriculum and assessment regimes that drive current practice. Grouping students by ability and offering a watered-down curriculum for some is not the answer. Evidenced-based learning progressions that point to what is important in ensuring all students build a deep, well-connected understanding of mathematics over time is what is needed to support reform at …

Mathematics Anxiety, Sarah Buckley

Student learning processes

This Mathematics Monograph is focussed on helping teachers and school leaders gain a better understanding of: How mathematics anxiety negatively impacts learning and teaching; the symptoms, causes and companions of mathematics anxiety; the difference between reducing mathematics anxiety directly and indirectly; and strategies that can identify and address mathematics anxiety in students and teachers. The Monograph is intended to present information for reflecting and planning how mathematics anxiety can be reduced and regulated in classrooms and in the school community.

Deconstructing Maths Anxiety: Helping Students To Develop A Positive Attitude Towards Learning Maths, Sarah Buckley

Student learning processes

Higher maths ability is often believed to go hand-in-hand with greater levels of general intelligence. At the same time, many students have a negative attitude towards maths. Maths anxiety is defined in the research literature as feelings of concern, tension or nervousness that are experienced in combination with maths. In 2005, researchers in the United States estimated that approximately 20 per cent of the US population were highly maths anxious. Given the cultural similarities between the US and Australia, we can assume that the percentage would be comparable here. Research in education, cognitive psychology and neuroscience shows that anxiety can …

Teaching Mathematics: Using Research-Informed Strategies, Peter Sullivan

Australian Education Review

AER 59 reviews research into aspects of mathematics teaching, focusing on issues relevant to Australian mathematics teachers, to those who support them, and also to those who make policy decisions about mathematics teaching. It was motivated by and draws on the proceedings of the well-attended and highly successful ACER Research Conference Teaching mathematics? Make it count: What research tells us about effective mathematics teaching and learning, held in Melbourne in August 2010.

Section 2 describes the goals of teaching mathematics and argues that a practical orientation should be the focus of mathematics teaching in the compulsory years, and outlines …

Against The Odds: Influences On The Post-School Success Of 'Low Performers', Sue Thomson, Kylie Hillman

Transition and Post-School Education and Training

The link between academic achievement and labour market outcomes is well established. But how well does a student's achievement in a test predict their later success in life? This study examines this question, with 'success' considered to encompass satisfaction with life together with the extent to which young people are fully occupied with education, employment or a combination of these. Low performers in mathematics in the 2003 Programme for International Student Assessment were the focus. The study found that 'low performing' status has little impact on future success. Further, students who saw the value of mathematics for their future success …

The Digest Edition 2010/2 : Language In The Mathematics Classroom, Marion Meiers, Jenny Trevitt

Research Digest

A recent Australian review of numeracy teaching noted the significant role of language in mathematics learning. The National Numeracy Review Report (2008), commissioned by the Council of Australian Governments (COAG), synthesised evidence on effective numeracy teaching to support the goal of improving numeracy outcomes for Australian students. The report of the review acknowledged the significance of language in mathematics learning, and recommended: That the language and literacies of mathematics be explicitly taught by all teachers of mathematics in recognition that language can provide a formidable barrier to both the understanding of mathematics concepts and to providing students access to assessment …

Language Implications For Numeracy: A Study Of Language Use Of Disadvantaged Students, Robyn Zevenbergen

2000 - Improving Numeracy Learning

Increasingly language is recognised as causing difficulties for students when they come to learn mathematics. Many different levels and aspects of language can be seen to create such difficulties for students. This paper looks at the implications of language on learning mathematics or developing a sense of numeracy.