Mathematics

With ACER’s Research Conference 2021 fast approaching, at Teacher magazine, we’ve been catching up with some of the keynote speakers that are on the line-up for the five-day online conference. In today’s episode we’re going to get you up to speed on these exciting stories at Teacher, and also some more of our highlights.

Teachers can have a key influence on the career choices of young people, so knowing their attitudes towards STEM can help us understand how students are being influenced in the school environment. Here, we share results of a survey capturing teacher attitudes towards STEM.

Professor Dianne Siemon will be delivering a Keynote address at this year’s ACER Research Conference. In this Q&A, she expands on her Keynote, ‘Excellent progress for all – a function of a year level curriculum or evidence-based learning progressions?’

Ahead of ACER’s Research Conference next month, we sat down with Professor Rich Lehrer from Vanderbilt University to discuss his research that explores science and mathematics education for elementary school students in the US. He also gives listeners a taste of what he’ll be sharing at the conference and why he decided to name his keynote address ‘Accountable Assessment’.

Who was the Greatest of All Time (GOAT) of women’s tennis in 2018? Teams participating in this year’s International Mathematical Modeling Challenge (IM2C) were tasked with developing and applying a model to determine just that.

In this Teaching Methods episode, we speak to education consultant Michael Minas about a study he conducted to measure primary school students’ attitudes towards completing challenging problem solving tasks in maths. Michael shares details of the lesson structure he utilised, and why students responded to it so positively.

‘An important factor in improving enrolments in STEM is ensuring the development of positive attitudes towards mathematics and science.’ In her new column for Teacher, Dr Sue Thomson discusses the results of the 2019 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), students’ general attitudes to mathematics and science, and their aspirations post-school.

A study has followed primary school teachers through an entire school year to document how they taught mathematics to be inclusive of children with Down syndrome. The findings have been published in the Mathematics Education Research Journal, and in today’s podcast we find out more from the report’s co-author, Associate Professor Rhonda Faragher.

Research indicates that Indigenous children’s participation in organised sport leads to an increase of two to seven months’ learning in numeracy. Here, we look at the findings and the implications of this research for closing the learning gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous students.

What should Australian schools and teachers focus on in order to improve students’ general understanding of mathematics and science? In her final Teacher column of the year, Dr Sue Thomson explores newly released TIMSS 2019 data to highlight some of the strengths and weaknesses of Australian students at the national level.