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This paper reports on a transdisciplinary approach to science with a Year 4/5 class incorporating citizen science through the Birds in Backyards project. This transdisciplinary approach created opportunities for student engagement through science, mathematics, design and technology, humanities and social sciences (HASS), arts and English, while also creating meaningful connections to nature and the local environment.

Middle year students often do not see the mathematics in the real world whereas the "Australian Curriculum: Mathematics" aims for students to be "confident and creative users and communicators of mathematics" (Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority [ACARA] 2012). Using authentic and real mathematics tasks can address this situation. This paper is an account of how, working within a Knowledge Producing Schools' framework, a group of middle year students addressed a real community issue, the problem of the lack of a teenage safe space using mathematics and technology. Data were collected for this case study via journal observations and reflections, semi-structured interviews, samples of the students' work and videos of students working. The data were analysed by identifying the mathematics the students used determining the function and location of the space and focused on problem negotiation, formulation and solving through the statistical investigation cycle. The paper will identify the mathematics and statistics these students used as they addressed a real problem in their local community.

In recent years there has been growing concern as to how to bridge the gap between the theory preservice teachers engage with as part of their learning in their tertiary classrooms and the profession. To enable pre-service teachers to make stronger connections with the profession, a mathematics teacher educator worked collaboratively with a practicing teacher by co-teaching one cohort of preservice teachers studying primary mathematics education. In this paper, we present two snapshots of the co-teaching experience and a framework that was used to describe how the co-teaching partnership helped the pre-service teachers to elicit mathematical thinking make connections between theory and practice, when engaged in mathematical discourse.

New cognitive infrastructures are emerging as digital platforms and artificial intelligence enable new forms of automated thinking that shape human decision-making. This paper (a) offers a new theoretical perspective on automated thinking in education policy and (b) illustrates how automated thinking is emerging in one specific policy context. We report on a case study of a policy analysis unit ('The Centre') in an Australian state education department that has been implementing a BI strategy since 2013. The Centre is now focused on using BI to support complex decision making and improve learning outcomes, and their strategy describes this focus as becoming 'information centric'. The theoretical framework for our analysis draws on infrastructure studies and philosophy of technology, particularly Luciana Parisi's recent work on automated thinking. We analyse technical documentation and semi-structured interview data to describe the enactment of a BI strategy in The Centre, with a focus on how new approaches to data analytics are shaping decision-making. Our analysis shows that The Centre is developing a cognitive infrastructure that is already creating new conditions for education policy making, and we conclude with a call for research designs that enable pragmatic exploration of what these infrastructures can do.

A critical incident is a situation or event that holds significance for learning, both for the students and teachers. This paper presents four examples of critical incidents from a Year 7 teacher's lesson excerpts in Indonesia involving teaching of fractions, to show how they shaped classroom situation, brought forward elements of conflict, and created learning opportunities. Three examples are drawn from the lesson using a web-based applet (Examples 1, 2 and 3). The illustration of these critical incidents will be followed by a discussion on how to harness them in order to develop students' understanding or be used as a challenge as well as a learning process for teachers. This paper highlights the effectiveness of a web-based applet for displaying pictorial representations in an interactive manner.

Since the 1990s, computer algebra systems (CAS) have been available in Australia as hand-held devices designed for students with the expectation that they will be used in the mathematics classroom. The data discussed in this paper was collected as part of a pilot study that investigated first year university mathematics and statistics students' understanding of functions and variables, as well as the use of technology in their last year of school (Year 12). Did their teachers discourage the use of CAS for algebra? Did the students actually learn how to use CAS to support their work in algebra or to support their learning of algebra? Did they find that, given the level of algebra, it was faster to work with pen-and-paper than to correctly enter algebraic expressions? The results reported in this paper are based on items included in a pilot survey. They raise questions rather than provide answers. The results do however tell us that, at least from these first year university students' recollection of their Year 12 experience, most or their VCE mathematics teachers made little use of CAS as a pedagogical tool in their classes, despite the institutional approval and encouragement indicated by both the State's curriculum and assessment for the past decade. A better understanding of the barriers to teachers using CAS technology to enhance their pedagogy is needed and then perhaps more effective professional learning programs can be provided for teachers.

To date, the way that academic misconduct is manifested in undergraduate mathematics coursework has been unexamined in the literature, with the consequence that policy and preventive education can fail to address it appropriately. This paper describes the particular features of the responses expected in mathematical tasks and provides concrete examples of what lapses of integrity look like in this context. The intent is to lay groundwork for discussion and a response to this issue from within our discipline.

The study of higher-level secondary mathematics is considered essential for national economic growth, competitiveness in research and innovation, and further education opportunities. Yet the reported trend within Australian secondary schools is that enrolments in higher-level mathematics are declining and have been in a state of decline for over a decade. The little available and recent literature published on this phenomenon has looked at why secondary students elect to study higher-level mathematics courses, both from the perspective of teachers and students. This research paper presents findings as to why Heads of Learning Area: Mathematics (HOLAMs) believe capable secondary students elect not to enrol in those courses. Data were collected from 50 secondary schools across the three sectors (Government, Catholic, Independent) in Western Australia. The key findings are that capable students do not enrol in higher-level mathematics courses because these courses are not required for university entrance, other courses appear to be less rigorous and more viable, and the Australian Tertiary Admissions Ranking (ATAR) score can be maximised by taking one mathematics course instead of two courses.

In this paper, we report on an experimental activity for discussing the concepts of speed, instantaneous speed and acceleration, generally introduced in first year university courses of calculus or physics. Rather than developing the ideas of calculus and using them to explain these basic concepts for the study of motion, we led 82 first year university students through Galileo's experiments designed to investigate the motion of falling bodies, and his geometrical explanation of his results, via simple dynamic geometric applets designed with GeoGebra. Our goal was to enhance the students' development of mathematical thinking. Through a scholarship of teaching and learning study design, we captured data from students before, during and after the activity. Findings suggest that the historical development presented to the students helped to show the growth and evolution of the ideas and made visible authentic ways of thinking mathematically. Importantly, the activity prompted students to question and rethink what they knew about speed and acceleration, and also to appreciate the novel concepts of instantaneous speed and acceleration at which Galileo arrived.

School autonomy has been identified as having an impact on a school's performance, yet less has been reported about the effect this has on students' goal orientations and engagement with mathematics. In a national study conducted in schools across Australia, measures of school autonomy were collected from teachers and school leaders, along with students' perceptions of the mastery and performance goal orientations of their classrooms and personally using surveys. Schools were identified as having high or low levels of autonomy on the basis of school leaders' responses. For the study discussed in this paper, a subset of 14 schools for which matched student and teacher data were available provided students' responses to a variety of variables including goal orientations. The findings suggested students in high-autonomy schools were less likely to hold a personal performance approach and avoidance goals than their peers in low-autonomy schools. Fifty-five case studies conducted in 52 schools provided evidence of some of the practical aspects of these findings, which have implications for systems, schools and teachers.

The importance of actively engaging in mathematics discourse in order to learn mathematics is well recognized. In this paper, I use Basil Bernstein's concepts of pedagogic discourse to document and analyse academic learning time of students in Years 8 and 9 at a suburban lower secondary school: in particular, for what proportion of class time students reported being academically engaged, their explanations for this engagement and how they felt about the discourse. It was found that many students had disengaged from mathematical endeavour as a result of the failure of the instructional discourse either to engage students or to serve the purpose of developing discipline-specific content knowledge. The reasons for this relate to the overemphasis on mundane mathematics resulting in some students lacking the cognitive tools to engage with the concepts and having neither the intrinsic nor instrumental motivation to persist with secondary school esoteric mathematics. The implications for mathematics curriculum development are discussed.

This paper reports on a study that investigated the ways that young children interact with discrete programmable digital toys in a free play setting. One intention was to see whether this interaction would address some of the requirements of the Digital Technologies subject in the Australian Curriculum. The study was implemented in two phases in consecutive years involving teachers and students from two early childhood classes. Researchers worked with the teachers to provide the children with opportunities to use two types of digital toys--the Sphero and the Beebot. The children were observed as they interacted with these toys and their interactions analysed using a checklist of behaviours. It was found that without some explicit scaffolding the children did not tend to demonstrate any actions that could be associated with an understanding of "algorithms". However, they did demonstrate motivation, engagement, and increased proficiency and recognition with using the hardware and software of these digital systems.

Closed captioning of instructional videos is a topic that has not seen much discussion despite its importance for hearing-impaired students and recent legal ramifications if videos are not appropriately captioned. In particular, it is unclear what best practice in captioning videos should be to benefit all learners in disciplines such as mathematics with a reliance on the development of visual explanation while providing audio narration. In this paper, we report on a study undertaken at an Australian university, to investigate the perceived level of usefulness of captions and their automatic translations in a mathematics course. We discovered that students broadly agreed that captions are a useful learning feature: to allow flexibility of where and when a video is watched, but also to help understand speaker accents, and clarify explanations that are difficult to hear in the recording. Due to the high levels of use and perceived educational benefits of closed captions in online video but limited literature, there is a significant need for new research in this area. An urgent discussion is needed to explore how students engage with closed captions, how they may support learning, and to investigate implications on instructional design of mathematical videos.

In Australia, there have been a growing number of nature-based early childhood education initiatives [Alme, H., and M. A. Reime. 2021. "Nature Kindergartens: A Space for Children's Participation." Journal of Outdoor and Environmental Education 24: 113–131]. Research into early years' nature education internationally remains under-theorised particularly in STEM teaching and learning. The nature or bush kindergarten programme (often referred to as 'bush kinders' in the Australian context), is one such programme where nature play and education occur. This paper considers how children's mathematical thinking develops through their time spent in bush kinder settings. Using an ethnographic lens, this longitudinal study is the first of its type in Australia with a focus on STEM in bush kinders. In this paper, eight 'powerful mathematical ideas' are used to analyse how educators can approach teaching mathematics with only what nature provides. The paper reports one main finding, that bush kinders provide opportunities for children through educator support to build mathematical understandings through nature play. Drawing on fieldwork data and the analysis of research literature, this paper contributes to the conceptualisation of mathematics in early childhood nature play and bush kinder programmes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the authors describe the initial stage of developing a framework designed to support out-of-field, less experiences or isolated mathematics and science teachers to make decisions about the use of resources in their teaching. The process highlighted the complexity and extent of the knowledge on which expert teachers draw in making such decisions and thus underscored the enormity of the task of teaching out-of-field. The eventual product, the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics: Critical Appraisal for Teachers (STEMCrAfT) framework has proven useful not only for the target audience, but also as a tool for colleagues who take on a mentoring role. The authors begin with a brief description of teacher knowledge before describing the project and then presenting what they unearthed about expert teachers' thinking and knowledge.

Two decades ago, in an award-winning paper, Dan Kennedy (1995) likened learning mathematics to climbing a tree, for which there was only one way to climb: up a large and solid trunk. In the limited time that is available, many students give up the climb, impede others, fall off the trunk, or fail to climb the tree sufficiently well. In the case of integration, the solid trunk seems to be heavily laden with algebraic manipulation. Kennedy suggested that technology might provide help in the form of ladders to climb the tree in other ways. Just as the use of technology allowed us to bypass the numerical requirements to calculate square roots (and other aspects of basic mathematics), it now seems time to look carefully at the use of computer algebra to reconsider how much of the algebraic trunk is really needed to help students climb the tree, look around and start to explore the branches of the tree that look interesting to them.

In this paper, we study the following fractional Choquard equation with weight (−Δ)su=1|x|N−α∗h(x)|u|ph(x)|u|p−2uinℝN,$$ {\left(-\Delta \right)}&#x0005E;su&#x0003D;\left(\frac{1}{{\left&#x0007C;x\right&#x0007C;}&#x0005E;{N-\alpha }}\ast h(x){\left&#x0007C;u\right&#x0007C;}&#x0005E;p\right)h(x){\left&#x0007C;u\right&#x0007C;}&#x0005E;{p-2}u\kern0.5em \mathrm{in}\kern0.5em {\mathrm{\mathbb{R}}}&#x0005E;N, $$where 02s,p>2,α>0$$ 02s,p>2,\alpha >0 $$ and h$$ h $$ is a positive weight function satisfying h(x)≥C|x|a$$ h(x)\ge C{\left&#x0007C;x\right&#x0007C;}&#x0005E;a $$ at infinity, for some a≥0$$ a\ge 0 $$. We establish, in this paper, a Liouville type theorem saying that if maxN−4s−2a,0<α

Traditionally, "z" is assumed to be a complex number and the roots are usually determined by using de Moivre's theorem adapted for fractional indices. The roots are represented in the Argand plane by points that lie equally pitched around a circle of unit radius. The "n"-th roots of unity always include the real number 1, and also include the real number -1 if "n" is even. The non-real "n"-th roots of unity always form complex conjugate pairs. This topic is taught to students studying a mathematics specialism (ACARA, n.d., Unit 3, Topic 1: Complex Numbers) as an application of de Moivre's theorem with the understanding that the roots occur in the complex domain. Meanwhile, in the Cartesian plane, a closely related topic deals with the solution of polynomials (ACARA, n.d., Unit 2, Topic 3: Real and Complex Numbers). The aim of this paper is to demonstrate visually the connection between the reduced polynomial "y" = "x"[superscript "n"] - 1 in the Cartesian plane and the resulting n-roots which invariably appear in the Argand plane. There is no contradiction here: the reader will find a three-dimensional surface representation of Equation (2) provides the full link between both the Cartesian and Argand planes, and illustrates not only the location of the roots in relation to the original equation but also shows why they occur with conjugate pairings. Examples will be provided for the cases "n" = 3, "n" = 5 and "n" = 8 which will be sufficient to illustrate the general pattern that emerges. The approach adopted here is a natural extension of the surface visualisation techniques first presented by Bardell (2012) for quadratic equations.

This article aims to illustrate a process of making connections, not between mathematics and other activities, but within mathematics itself--between diverse parts of the subject. Novel connections are still possible in previously explored mathematics when the material happens to be unfamiliar, as may be the case for a learner at any career stage. The geometrical configuration explored in this paper, now known as "Ford circles" after Lester R. Ford, Sr. (1886-1967), is related to ideas about mutually tangent circles that were studied by, among others, Apollonius of Perga in the third century BC and by René Descartes in the 17th century. This exposition is intended to conjure the thoughts of a hypothetical mathematician attempting to find and explain some connections, in the process exploring some lines that turn out to be unproductive, and making observations that are really non sequiturs, before eventually achieving some success. The author suggests that seemingly innocent mathematical fragments can have connections to many related ideas. If a teacher is in possession of a broad subject knowledge, then the likelihood seems high that it is possible to draw out useful connections in the classroom or in well-designed projects and assignments. For this reason, the author claims that an ever-widening subject knowledge is of utmost importance in a teacher's program of professional development.

School mathematics tends to have developed from the major cultures of Asia, the Mediterranean and Europe. However, indigenous cultures in particular may have distinctly different systematic ways of referring to space and thinking mathematically about spatial activity. Their approaches are based on the close link between the environment and cultural activity. The affinity to place strengthens the efficient, abstract, mathematical system behind the reference and its connection to the real world of place and a holistic worldview. This paper sets out to present an overview of various approaches to aspects of space and geometry by drawing on linguistic and cultural literature, my collaborative research in Papua New Guinea, and from personal communications with indigenous colleagues in Australia and elsewhere. This diversity provides a challenge by which teachers can deconstruct their thinking about mathematics and subsequently to review the content of teaching and to be more responsive to the diversity of cultural backgrounds of students. To assist with recognising ecocultural mathematics on space and geometry, 4 principles are established and discussed on language structures, reference lines and points, measures of space and worldviews and interpretations of space as place.

Background: Computer‐based assessment allows for the monitoring of reader behaviour. The identification of patterns in this behaviour can provide insights that may be useful in informing educational interventions. Objectives: Our study aims to explore what different patterns of reading activity exist, and investigates their interpretation and consistency across different task sets (units), countries, and languages. Three patterns were expected: on‐task, exploring and disengaged. Methods: Using log data from the PISA 2012 digital reading assessment (9226 students from seven countries), we conducted hierarchical cluster analyses with typical process indicators of digital reading assessments. We identified different patterns and explored whether they remained consistent across different units. To validate the interpretation of the identified patterns, we examined their relationship to performance and student characteristics (gender, socio‐economic status, print reading skills). Results and Conclusions: The results indicate a small number of transnational clusters, with unit‐specific differences. Cluster interpretation is supported by associations with student characteristics—for example, students with low print reading skills were more likely to show a disengaged pattern than proficient readers. Exploring behaviour tended to be exhibited only once across the three units: It occurred in the first unit for proficient readers and in later units for less skilled readers. Major Takeaways: Behavioural patterns can be identified in digital reading tasks that may prove useful for educational monitoring and intervention. Although task situations are designed to evoke certain behaviours, the interpretation of observed behavioural patterns requires validation based on task requirements, assessment context and relationships to other available information. Lay Description: What is already known about the subject matter?: Students differ in how they read, comprehend and use digital information.Indicators from process data provide insight about how students engage with digital reading tasks. What does this paper add to the subject matter?: Based on multiple process indicators, a small number of clusters indicating different behavioural activity can be distinguished.These clusters can be described as on‐task, passive, hasty, exploring, disengaged, persistent and lost interest.A meaningful interpretation of the clusters must consider the requirements of the underlying tasks. Implications for practice and/or policy: Knowledge of how students engage with digital resources may provide useful feedback for teachers to guide students' learning or intervene when they struggle.Educational monitoring: The high comparability of country‐specific results suggests an invariant set of solution strategies in the digital reading assessment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is intended to provide a source of critical and theoretical reflection on the current mathematics educational objectives for Indigenous students in Australia, which are premised on acceptance of underlying concepts of 'equity'. It is not the intention of this paper to identify 'how' Indigenous knowledge can be positioned within mathematics curricula, as this would entail a philosophical inquiry much deeper than has been afforded thus far. The intent here is a consideration, facilitated through the lens of key concepts of Foucault, of some of the boundaries currently shaping the ways in which this positioning is being influenced in the mathematics, albeit neoliberal education context. Acknowledging the interplay between the social, and unconsciously shaped adoptions of what can be considered truth; knowledge; and therefore power, is a first step toward developing the openness of heart and mind needed to make real and transformative changes to education for future societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mathematics education is seen as a right for all children, and important to ensure a prosperous future. However, in Australia and other nations, rural students and students from low socioeconomic backgrounds both perform less well in mathematics and are less likely to pursue advanced mathematics. This paper presents a case study of a low socioeconomic status, rural government school that has high engagement and achievement in senior mathematics, despite its setting. The study uses a conceptual framework informed by Appreciative Inquiry and the theory of Practice Architectures to explore the activities and facilitatory elements that have likely contributed to the school's mathematics success. Rather than being attributed to one or two key programmes, the school's mathematics success seemed associated with a collection of whole-school factors. Setting high expectations while providing proactive learning support, differentiating instruction, emphasising the value of mathematics, linking mathematics to careers, and building mathematics teacher capacity were all associated with the school's higher than expected mathematics performance. Rather than hindering the school's mathematics programme, its small size and rural context were used to enable practices that contributed to mathematics success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the relationship between early childhood music and maths. The emphasis is on children as intuitive pattern makers as they explore, categorise and imagine their worlds. We argue for the careful listening of childhood languages and reason that music and maths are expressive languages that young children use to investigate and experiment. This concept is based on Malaguzzi’s idea of the hundred languages of children. Children’s explorations of patterns, whether music, maths or other media will follow the principle of symmetry. We observe the intersectionality of language/s. Data are drawn from video and teaching materials prepared for early childhood teachers in-service training in Australia. Framing the discussion with Vygotskian and developmental theories we identify the patterns a child makes in a music discovery video and categorise the child’s actions to combine both musical and mathematical concepts within the one action. The aim of the research is to revisit early childhood curriculum and pedagogy, rethinking sources of knowledge and the value of treating arts and sciences as being of equal importance as children discover and define their worlds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While international research has demonstrated that ability grouping is inequitable, Australian research has often overlooked equity concerns, predominantly focusing on studying the benefits of grouping for students perceived to have high ability, especially in mathematics. This paper investigates the effect that mathematics ability grouping has on senior secondary mathematics participation for low and middle grouped students in New South Wales, Australia. We drew on interviews about mathematics participation with 85 students and 22 mathematics teachers from 11 government high schools. Our thematic analysis of these data identified that secondary school grouping practices often serve to entrench student interest and/or performance from primary school. This has consequences for many students, with a differentiated curriculum in Years 9 and 10 precluding low and middle grouped students from participating in high-level mathematics when they reach senior secondary school. These findings raise serious equity questions about the current push in Australia for universities to re-introduce high-level mathematics as a prerequisite to entering certain degrees. We argue that stakeholders need greater awareness of the consequences of ability grouping and that those seeking to lift post-compulsory mathematics participation should be targeting primary and early secondary school. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues for Teaching for Mathematising as a pedagogy that supports teaching mathematics for understanding in primary school. Mathematics education in Australia currently emphasises teaching for mathematical understanding, a shift that redirects children's learning from merely memorising computation procedures to helping children construct knowledge of the mathematics that informs mathematical concept and processes. The shift to teaching for understanding however is not reflected in students' item responses in international and national achievement studies. This paper provides one example that illustrates a learning trajectory for supporting mathematical understanding of both conceptual and procedural knowledge through teaching that builds on the framework of Teaching for Mathematising. A corresponding field-test will then be used to illustrated how students learn pragmatically. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores analysis of feedback data collected from student consultations at two mathematics support centres at universities in Australia and Ireland. Unstructured text data was collected over six years and includes qualitative data on student queries collected during the consultations from mathematics and statistics related subjects. Topic modelling and clustering algorithms are used to uncover key themes in the data across stages. Common areas of difficulty experienced by undergraduate students at both universities are investigated and a comparison between them is shown. The results suggest that, despite institutional differences, there is considerable overlap in the types of mathematical and statistical difficulties experienced by students in their first and second year of university at these institutions. We discuss how the ability to uncover such common mathematical and statistical themes with the aid of text mining techniques can be used to improve the support provided by mathematics support centres in terms of providing an efficient and effective service. The code for analyses at both institutions is provided in a GitHub repository so other academic support centres may use it. Outcomes of this analysis have implications for mainstream mathematics and statistics instructors who wish to gain further insights into their students' learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Physical activity (PA) during childhood and adolescence is important for the accrual of maximal peak bone mass. The precise dose that benefits bone remains unclear as methods commonly used to analyze PA data are unsuitable for measuring bone‐relevant PA. Using improved accelerometry methods, this study identified the amount and intensity of PA most strongly associated with bone outcomes in 11–12‐year‐olds. Participants (n = 770; 382 boys) underwent tibial peripheral quantitative computed tomography to assess trabecular and cortical density, endosteal and periosteal circumference and polar stress‐strain index. Seven‐day wrist‐worn raw acceleration data averaged over 1‐s epochs was used to estimate time accumulated above incremental PA intensities (50 milli‐gravitational unit (mg) increments from 200 to 3000 mg). Associations between time spent above each 50 mg increment and bone outcomes were assessed using multiple linear regression, adjusted for age, sex, height, weight, maturity, socioeconomic position, muscle cross‐sectional area and PA below the intensity of interest. There was a gradual increase in mean R2 change across all bone‐related outcomes as the intensity increased in 50 mg increments from >200 to >700 mg. All outcomes became significant at >700 mg (R2 change = 0.6%–1.3% and p = 0.001–0.02). Any further increases in intensity led to a reduction in mean R2 change and associations became non‐significant for all outcomes >1500 mg. Using more appropriate accelerometry methods (1‐s epochs; no a priori application of traditional cut‐points) enabled us to identify that ∼10 min/day of PA >700 mg (equivalent to running ∼10 km/h) was positively associated with pQCT‐derived measures of bone density, geometry and strength in 11–12‐year‐olds. Highlights: Accelerometry methods that are commonly used to assess free‐living, bone‐relevant physical activity (PA) are not well suited to measuring bone‐specific characteristics of PA (short bursts of high‐impact activity).Processing raw acceleration data using much shorter epochs (1‐s) and using incremental 50 mg intensity thresholds (rather than traditional, broad intensity thresholds) enabled a bone‐specific, beneficial intensity to be identified.The methods outlined provide a means for more precisely assessing free‐living bone‐relevant PA and permit the transparent and reproducible analysis of raw accelerometry data, which will enhance our ability to quantify dose‐response associations in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we explore how participation in a constructivist-oriented, classroom aligned mathematics intervention program advanced the learning and positive dispositions of Grade 1 students who were failing to thrive when learning mathematics. Intervention programs are an approach to differentiated instruction that some schools adopt, but there are questions about whether such interventions advance equity and inclusion for students. To provide insight about these issues, we draw on data from the Extending Mathematical Understanding for All study in NSW, Australia (2016-2020) to address two research aims. The first aim was to evaluate the effectiveness of the EMU intervention approach for progressing the mathematics learning of students who were failing to thrive mathematically, and for closing the performance gap with their peers. The second aim was to consider the impact of participating in EMU intervention on students' dispositions for learning mathematics. The findings confirm the potential of intensive constructivist-based intervention approaches for closing the performance gap for students who were not thriving in mathematics, and for improving the learning dispositions of these students. However, two years after the intervention, the performance gap was again apparent for many students. It is likely that a one-off intervention program is not sufficient for enabling all students to thrive mathematically, and that well-focused classroom-based differentiated instruction and further intervention support may be warranted for some students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With more and more political candidates using social media for campaigning, researchers are looking at measuring the effectiveness of this medium. Most research, however, concentrates on the bare count of likes (or twitter mentions) in an attempt to correlate social media presence and winning. In this paper, we propose a novel method, Interaction Strength Plot (IntS) to measure the passive interactions between a candidate’s posts on Facebook and the users (liking the posts). Using this method on original Malaysian General Election (MGE13) and Australian Federal Elections (AFE13) Facebook Pages (FP) campaign data, we label an FP as performing well if both the posting frequency and the likes gathered are above average. Our method shows that over 60% of the MGE13 candidates and 85% of the AFE13 candidates studied in this paper had under-performing FP. Some of these FP owners would have been identified as popular based on bare count. Thus our performance chart is a vital step forward in measuring the effectiveness of online campaigning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Materials and Methods: In this paper, we propose a theoretical model based upon previous studies about personal and social network dynamics of job performance. We provide empirical support for this model using real-world data within the context of the Australian radiology profession. An examination of radiologists’ professional network topology through structural-positional and relational dimensions and radiologists’ personal characteristics in terms of knowledge, experience and self-esteem is provided. Thirty one breast imaging radiologists completed a purpose designed questionnaire regarding their network characteristics and personal attributes. These radiologists also independently read a test set of 60 mammographic cases: 20 cases with cancer and 40 normal cases. A Jackknife free response operating characteristic (JAFROC) method was used to measure the performance of the radiologists’ in detecting breast cancers. Results: Correlational analyses showed that reader performance was positively correlated with the social network variables of degree centrality and effective size, but negatively correlated with constraint and hierarchy. For personal characteristics, the number of mammograms read per year and self-esteem (self-evaluation) positively correlated with reader performance. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis indicated that the combination of number of mammograms read per year and network’s effective size, hierarchy and tie strength was the best fitting model, explaining 63.4% of the variance in reader performance. The results from this study indicate the positive relationship between reading high volumes of cases by radiologists and expertise development, but also strongly emphasise the association between effective social/professional interactions and informal knowledge sharing with high performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much research has been conducted on children's self-talk and its use to regulate thinking and behaviour, but research has typically been conducted on audible self-talk when undertaking specific tasks designed by researchers and in laboratory situations. Addressing the need to study self-talk in the classroom and by students of an age when self-talk is largely internalised, this study investigated the association of self-talk with children's self-regulatory behaviour and academic performance. The findings reported in this paper are based on the data from self-report questionnaires on self-talk completed by eight-to-nine-year-olds, national mathematics achievement test results, and a teacher-completed behaviour rating scale. Based on the previous research, results were somewhat unexpected, including that self-talk may not have a very strong role in children's behavioural self-regulation and calling into question an effect of self-talk on children's learning in the classroom. Possible reasons are provided and the need for future research is acknowledged. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper identifies binary oppositions in the discourse of mathematics education and introduces a binary-epistemic model for (re)conceptualising these oppositions and the epistemic-pedagogic problems they represent. The model is attentive to the contextual relationships between pedagogically relevant binaries (e.g., traditional/progressive, student-centred/teacher-centred, discovery/transmission, constructivist/behaviourist) and epistemically relevant binaries (e.g., concrete/abstract, pure/applied, interpretivist/positivist, subjective/objective) that operate in mathematics classrooms. The premise of this paper is that ways of knowing mathematics (i.e., epistemologies) are actualised in ways of teaching mathematics (i.e., pedagogies), and vice-versa. The binary-epistemic model describes oppositional, equipositional and parapositional ways of knowing and teaching in relation to these binaries. We argue for a more a relational-contextual or parapositional approach to binary polarities that have otherwise proven divisive in mathematical discourse. In the context of the new Australian Curriculum, we illustrate epistemically differentiated ways of teaching measurement in a Year 5 mathematics classroom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]