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Rebecca Mola

Shifting pre-service teachers’ views of teaching secondary mathematics

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Gregory Hine (University of Notre Dame Australia) and Sandra Herbert (Deakin University)

A well-established claim is that teacher education programs are pivotal in the professional preparation and formation of pre-service secondary mathematics teachers (PSMTs). Despite this claim, there appears to be a lack of understanding of how best to prepare PSMTs for the profession.

The purpose of this study was to examine and monitor changes over time in PSMTs’ views about approaches to teaching mathematics in secondary schools, before and after undertaking mathematics teaching methods courses (including practicum teaching). These views included their perceived readiness to teach secondary mathematics, as well as an indication of their likelihood to use particular teaching approaches for mathematics.

For this study, PSMTs at two Australian universities were surveyed before and after they undertook their respective teaching methods courses, and interviewed upon course completion. Overall, survey data did not indicate a significant change in PSMTs’ views of readiness to teach mathematics from either university (N = 61 pre-survey, N = 34 post-survey).

An analysis of interview data revealed that PSMTs did not feel ready to teach secondary mathematics, with their emphases focused on two areas where improvement was needed. The areas requiring improvement were their mathematical content knowledge and mathematical pedagogical knowledge. Nevertheless, nearly half of the interviewees reported feeling confident to teach mathematics to lower secondary classes (Years 7-10). Despite these concessions, all interviewed PSMTs outlined at least one area where they had experienced professional growth since commencing a teacher education degree.

Issues in Educational Research, 32(2), 533-554. http://www.iier.org.au/iier32/hine.pdf

Ready to Write? An investigation of the writing experiences of pre-service teachers

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Paul Gardner & Sonja Kuzich – Curtin University, School of Education

Over several decades, a preoccupation with reading has dominated the literacy debate in primary education. One-sided discussions around literacy not only neglect to consider the symbiotic relationship of reading and writing, but marginalise writing as a worthwhile subject for research. Increasingly, primary teachers are using commercial writing programs as a means of scaffolding the writing curriculum. However, using NAPLAN results as a benchmark, standards of writing have consistently deteriorated over the last decade. Starting from the premise that teachers need to be confident writers in order to teach writing, this study surveyed the writing practices of First Year Primary and Early Childhood Education (ECE) B.Ed. students on entry to university.

Findings show that although student teachers write regularly, they most frequently write short, informal digital texts, rather than the text types common to the primary English curriculum. Over fifty percent of students had not written a story or poem in over two years, and in some instances, it was more than a decade. It is suggested that insufficient recent experience of writing the text-types they will teach on graduation may be a factor contributing to falling standards of writing. International studies show this phenomenon is not restricted to Australia.

The study recommends that writing should be given a higher profile in Initial Teacher Education (ITE) through a ‘knowledge in praxis’ approach in which student-teachers are positioned as writers who learn about writer agency and compositional processes as ‘insiders’.

The study is followed by a second paper, yet to be published, in which students reflect on their experiences of learning about writing after being immersed in this ‘knowledge in praxis’ approach.      

An investigation of the writing experiences of pre-service teachers, Issues in Educational Research, 32(2), 513-532 http://www.iier.org.au/iier32/gardner.pdf

WAIER Undergraduate Workshop 2022

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Day/Date: Saturday 6th August

Time: 9 am – 12 noon

Venue: Tannock Hall, University of Notre Dame (Fremantle). 

Who should attend? 

  • Undergraduate teacher education students and those recently graduated (within the last year).
  • Students who have conducted research as part of a unit/s in their undergraduate education course and;
  • Students who are interested in learning more about how to conduct and interpret research.

Format of the workshop

Dr Sally Lamping (Curtin University) and Dr Saul Karnovsky (Curtin University) will facilitate an open and engaging workshop that will help you to understand how place-based research can inform your classroom pedagogies.

The FREE workshop will provide an opportunity for you to collaborate with peers from universities across to WA. We will engage in dialogue, explore the surrounds of Fremantle and share our discoveries to learn more about each other, our local space and our teaching philosophies.

We will be going outside, so please wear appropriate clothing for walking/weather and bring a water bottle. 

See below for registration details.

Want to hear more educational research? -then stay for the rest of the day at our WAIER Annual Research Forum. The 2022 Forum theme is Research for Disruption: Making a Difference and this part of the day starts at 1 pm. 

  • You can choose from over 40 research presentations on a range of educational issues such as literacy, inclusive practices, gender, sustainability and more across early childhood, primary, secondary and tertiary education. 

See the details here: Annual Forum – WAIER

The day concludes with a Networking Sundowner- an opportunity to meet and chat over some drinks and fabulous food.

The day concludes with a Networking Sundowner- an opportunity to meet and chat over some drinks and fabulous food.

Costs

Undergraduate Workshop Only   – Free

Undergraduate Workshop and Forum – $25 

Register here

If you would like to ask any questions about the WAIER Undergraduate Workshop please email:

Dr Saul Karnovsky Saul.Karnovsky@curtin.edu.au

We would love to see you there ?

International Women’s Day – Celebrate Feminist Researchers

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Paul Gardner, Curtin University

In remembering International Women’s Day, WAIER celebrates the role of Feminist researchers. Many pioneer Feminist researchers drew attention to the fact that much so called ‘objective’, empirical research has been conducted by men on men. In the main, male researchers have been white and middle class, coming from the global North. Not only has male-centric research rendered women researchers ‘invisible’, it also distorts reality by excluding women’s perspectives. Such research has been justifiably critiqued as epistemologically flawed. ‘Man-stream’ science assumes ‘a detached knower’ who frames neutral questions and value-free findings and analysis (Wiggington & Lafrance, 2019). Feminist researchers, no matter their discipline, have been united around the construction of inclusive research methodologies and the promotion of women’s perspective of the world. One key theoretical perspective in feminist research is ‘standpoint theory’, which frames knowledge as being situated in one’s social position, which influences how the world is experienced. Feminist researchers have also drawn attention to the fallacy of the ‘detached’ neutral researcher, and have called on all researchers to acknowledge how their own subjective positions impinge on views of ‘reality’.

Further Reading – Britta Wiggington and Michelle Lafrance’s article which formed the basis of this piece can be accessed at:         

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0959353519866058

Wigginton, B. & Lafrance, M.N. (2019) Learning critical feminist research: A brief introduction to feminist epistemologies and methodologies. Feminism & Psychology. September 2019. doi:10.1177/0959353519866058

Summer Research Webinar 2022

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Qualitative methodologies

WAIER is very excited to announce a new partnership with the South Australian Institute for Education Research (SAIER) and the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) to offer a series of FREE methodologies webinars. The webinars will be presented by Emeritus Professor Barry Down, Associate Professor Peter Wright and Dr Christine Cunningham.

Emeritus Professor Barry Down

Critical theorizing and qualitative research in education

Critical inquiry attempts to expose complex, intersecting power relations that both
privilege and oppress. At heart, it is concerned with issues of fairness, equity, and the
struggle for socially just schools. The presentation will draw on several school-based
ethnographies and lessons from the field, providing an overview of critical qualitative
research.

Associate Professor Peter Wright

Dealing with complexity and sense-making in qualitative inquiry

A brief overview of research in complex environments and several processes of
sense-making and pluralistic approaches to research. Drawing on a specific project,
Peter will directly speak to the progressive removal of uncertainty in a climate of
‘outcomes and impact’, and the framing devices that can enable us to plan, enact and
share our research insights.

Dr Christine Cunningham

Transnational research methodologies and qualitative data gathering: How
might we judge the excellence of this type of research?

Arguably, many early career researchers struggle with the epistemological and lexical
quagmire of judging qualitative research. In this presentation Christine hopes to
discuss her research team’s work using transnational research methodologies and
focus in on the qualitative data gathering methods we have used successfully to
access Chinese participants inside the People’s Republic and Bolivian participants in
a remote region of South America. Then I offer some suggestions on how we might
judge the quality of this type of cross-cultural, multilingual research from both a
critical and qualitative perspective.

When

Wednesday 23 March 2022

  • Western Australia 4:30pm – 6:00pm
  • South Australia 7:00pm – 8:30pm
  • New South Wales 7:30 – 9:00pm

Where

Online webinar via MS Teams platform

Please register your attendance at https://forms.office.com/r/0j4V2McKd9

For questions, contact admin.perth@acer.org

Webinar link will be emailed to you on Tuesday, 22 March 2022

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