Search

The STEAMTEACH (STEAM Education for Teaching Professionalism) project works with teacher trainers to develop a program of Transcultural STEAM Professional Development for in- and pre-service teachers. Following a literature review, a semi-structured questionnaire then interviews approach was used to elicit current practice, challenges for teachers and recommendations from Austrian teacher trainers. These recommendations were then compared with and supported by STEAM academic literature. It was found that none of the institutions offered a STEAM approach and it does not appear in the curriculum. Indeed, this fact is the primary challenge to overcome. Recommendations were that teachers should work in multidisciplinary, supportive, collaborative groups and networks. Problem and project-based learning were identified as key learning methodologies. A mix of physical and on-line working synchronously and asynchronously was recommended for online professional development because teachers can participate irrespective of time and place. Educational technology can support collaboration, and also 'plug and play' technologies including game-based learning can be inserted into an overall STEAM approach. The affective factor was judged essential for students and teachers.

Collaborative Problem Solving (CPS) has been widely used in both industry and in schools over at least the last twenty years. The Industry Hothousing variant of CPS is an intensive, time-constrained workshop-based process to build mutual trust between customers and industry experts in order to synergically develop creative solutions. The main objective of this research is to determine whether and how Hothousing might be used in schools for developing Collaborative Problem Solving and then promoting industry skills. In particular, we seek to establish the degree of structure and support required to unleash student creativity and enhance learning, and the benefits to students and teachers in learning, cross-curricular applicability and time savings. Hothousing for students is based on an intensive series of workshops including face-to-face and on-line collaboration supported by a facilitator. It is student-driven and addresses an open-ended challenge such as: how do I get my friends to love STEAM? Three collaborative problem-solving case studies were examined with different groups of students. Concerning the degree of structure and support, the analyses revealed that student-led intensive collaboration within a trusted framework drives creativity, and it was a good opportunity to experience real life challenges. Positive benefits to students and teachers were the development of technology skills, and Personal Learning and Thinking Skills (PLTS) as well as the enhancement perception of self and STEAM education. These benefits were cross-curricular providing qualitative and efficiency gains including on-line learning.

Modern technologies have become an integral part in our society and are increasingly shaping the teaching of mathematics at every level of education. In Austria, the academic school year 2021/22 will undergo an extensive digitalisation; all students who start secondary school will be equipped with a digital device. Our paper reports on anticipated concerns and benefits of mathematics teachers who are required to integrate technologies into teaching mathematics at the first year of secondary education. We conducted an exploratory interview study with secondary mathematics teachers before schools received their digital devices. The data was analysed with techniques based on grounded theory approaches. We discovered that for teachers the anticipated concerns and benefits were: (1) discrimination of students by technologies; (2) by using technologies, students may lose basic mathematical knowledge and skills; (3) individual and playful acquisition of new technological competencies by teachers; and (4) using technologies to enhance differentiation and individualisation in mathematics teaching. One of the key findings of our study is that mathematics teachers in Austria feel capable enough to integrate technologies into the teaching and learning of mathematics at the beginning of secondary education and do not express the need for further technical training. This finding contradicts previous studies and provides a starting point for future investigations.

The aims of this analysis are to explain the level of thinking of grade VIII students at SMP Negeri 1 Talang Ubi in solving Pythagorean Theorem questions based on Van Hiele's theory. The research approach used in this analysis is descriptive qualitative case study research. The subjects of this research were three students of grade VIII of SMP Negeri 1 Talang Ubi, South Sumatera Indonesia. The three students were chosen based on their test answers on the Pythagorean Theorem material, with one being a high-ability student, one being a medium-ability student, and one being a low-ability student. The study's data collection techniques included assessments, interviews, and documentation. Techniques for data processing include data reduction, data presentation, and conclusion. The findings revealed that high-ability students could complete all four stages of Van Hiele's thinking: imagination, interpretation, informal deduction, and deduction. Moderate students achieved three levels of Van Hiele's thinking, including visualization, analysis, and informal deduction, while low-ability students achieved only one level of Van Hiele's thinking, visualization.

Combining new educational approaches and educational technologies can make mathematics education more adaptable to pupils' needs in the 21st century. Our explorative educational study aimed to identify how learning settings and learning environments should be designed to facilitate synthesising flipped approaches to education and using GeoGebra. To discover how to combine flipped approaches and GeoGebra in mathematics education, we conducted a nine-month educational study at a Viennese secondary school. In our study, we focused on pupils' needs, as pupils are key to combining successfully new educational approaches and using technologies. Analysing our qualitative research data following design-based and grounded theory approaches indicates that the categories (a) clear task definition and task design, (b) feedback, (c) context and benefits, and (d) single-source learning environments are important for pupils when utilising GeoGebra for enhancing flipped education.

This study aims to uncover some key elements of successful home-learning of mathematics, based on students' perceptions, during the COVID-19 pandemic and offer recommendations for mathematics learning beyond the crisis. Throughout our work, we aimed to examine students' reflections on mathematics learning and learning environments that assisted their ease of transition from in-school face-to-face learning to home-schooling during the COVID-19 isolation. In this paper, we will present how mathematics learning has changed for upper secondary school students in Austria and outline students' perspectives in relation to their new learning experiences during the period of school closures. Through the use of case study principles enhanced by some design-based research approaches, we were able to illustrate that (a) familiarity with the context, (b) problems or tasks as learning triggers, (c) mathematics learning as a social as well as individual process, and (d) perceived positive cost-benefit analysis of learning mathematics are key to students' learning success. Although these categories were key for the students when learning mathematics in home-schooling during the current crisis, these categories could be equally considered when education moves back to school or in mixed learning environments post COVID-19.

Using ePortfolios in mathematics learning is a valuable way to visualise students' learning outcomes in student-driven learning. ePortfolios are typically a collection of finished or fixed artefacts. However, several new software applications offer the opportunity to incorporate the interactive and dynamic characters of mathematics and mathematics­ /earning outcomes. Utilising such new software applications could be further enhanced by using student-driven approaches to teaching such as flipped learning, which is one example of merging the Rotation and Flex models of blended learning. Our study aimed to investigate students' requirements of dynamic and interactive ePortfolio software and related approaches to teaching and learning using the principles of explorative case studies enhanced with the techniques of design-based research and grounded theory. Qualitative analysis of student data collected over seven months indicates that key requirements are (a) a customisable techno-mathematics learning environment, (b) a tool that can enable mathematics learning with different representations, and (c) a familiar and intuitive mathematics learning environment with a limited set of tools.

In our technological age, many technologies and real-world objects communicate with each other or partly merge. However, this combination of technologies and real-world objects has not yet found its way into everyday teaching practices in schools to any great extent. To investigate the possibilities of combining technologies and real-world objects in mathematics classes, we conducted an exploratory educational study with 47 students. Analysing students' data using the principles of grounded theory demonstrated that for students in our study (A) using open tasks with multiple solutions, (B) immediate feedback and (C) novelty effects in the learning process, are essential to design mathematics learning environments with combining technologies and real-world objects when learning basic logical operations.

Aim/Purpose: Our research aims to explore which design elements and aspects of online learning environments are relevant for teachers when introduced to educational innovations such as flipped learning and, thereby, to enable facilitating the dissemination of these innovations. Background: Integrating educational innovations from academic discourses or professional teacher development into teachers' classroom practices is challenging. Sustaining and reinforcing their effects on professional development is also difficult especially because of the lack of continuous support and inspiration for long term pedagogical changes. Online learning environments could facilitate such assistance, inspiration, and assist in developing supportive teacher communities. The current coronavirus pandemic and the associated homeschooling illustrate that supportive off- and online teacher communities and mutual support and inspiration of teachers will become increasingly significant, especially in virtual learning environments. Methodology: To discover key elements and aspects of such learning environments, an online learning environment for flipped mathematics education was developed, and its application was investigated following design-based research principles. Contribution: In this paper, specifications of design elements and aspects of our online learning environments for teachers embedded into flipped education and other educational innovations will be introduced. Findings: The evaluation of the research data using grounded theory principles indicated that if online learning environments was to promote flipped approaches in mathematics education for teachers in our study the following categories were essential: (a) teachers want to be able to make decisions concerning online learning, (b) online learning environments should illustrate advantages of approaches/technologies as well as their practical relevance, (c) online learning environments should not lead to additional work for teachers, and (d) privacy and security of online learning environments. Recommendations for Practitioners: Following results of our study, teachers should be provided with a variety of high-quality learning materials and opportunities for teachers to share their own learning materials through online learning environments in professional teacher development. However, when providing a variety of learning materials, course leaders should ensure not to overburden participants of professional teacher development. Recommendation for Researchers: For researchers, it is necessary to verify results of our qualitative study quantitatively and to apply our results in other fields of online learning as well. Focusing on the contradictions between the visibility and dissemination of innovation through OLE and teachers' request for closed OLE could be fruitful. Impact on Society: Results of our study could also have an impact on working lives as a whole, and not just schools or professional teacher development. The corona pandemic has increased the relevance of online working and related online learning for a growing part of our society. High-quality online learning environments could play important roles in this professional transformation. Future Research: Our consecutive research step will be, on the one hand, to explore how online learning environments and their elements could support teachers in their everyday professional lives and thus shifting our research focus from professional teacher development to teaching and learning mathematics in schools. On the other hand, our future research will focus on developing quality standards for learning materials for online learning environments. Furthermore, research should also be continued in regions and subjects with less favorable conditions. This enhancement of research setting should improve the generalizability of our results.

Recently, the idea of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (FIR) is increasingly shaping discussions about the world of work and society. In order to prepare the next generations for such new developments, it is necessary to adjust the way they learn. One possibility for a change in education is Flipped Classroom Approaches (FCA), which are particularly helpful in mathematics education. The aim of our research is to identify essential pillars for teachers, when they are being familiarised with FCA. Therefore, we have chosen a research method that integrates various approaches and diverse data sources. The data from a first sequence of expert interviews indicate, that regulatory changes, the recognition of one's own learning and its added value, as well as being a member of a learner group are crucial in those cases, where the topic of teacher training utilise both student-centred and technology-enhanced forms of learning. Thus, it would be necessary to modify in-service teacher training in Austria and beyond to utilise FCA.

In this study, we discuss how the use of student personas can support pre-service teachers developing digital mathematics learning resources and improve mathematics teacher training programs. The use of modern technologies in schools requires that pre-service teachers prepare for new challenges, including the development of digital learning resources. To be able to develop such resources during teacher training, pre-service mathematics teachers without direct contact with students need insights into particular characteristics of mathematics students. We argue that personas, a tool and approach adopted from user experience research, can provide such insights. For this purpose, we interviewed four pre-service mathematics teachers who were developing digital learning resources in the span of a semester. We analyzed the data using grounded qualitative content analysis approaches and identified the following key aspects of personas usage for mathematics teacher training: (A) personas can act as an information tool, (B) personas can act as a planning and feedback tool, (C) the use of personas can trigger reflection processes for pre-service teachers, and (D) sustained work with personas may increase its impact. Our results indicate that personas can offer pre-service teachers support when developing digital learning resources and contribute to their professional development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our research aimed to identify factors of motivation and affect to best characterize upper secondary mathematics students and correlations between these factors. This work is based on personas, a tool from user experience research for representing the needs and characteristics of users of a system, developed in prior research. In the present study, we conducted an online questionnaire study with questionnaire scales aligned to the previously developed personas. To identify latent factors in the characterization of upper secondary mathematics students, a factor analysis was conducted and correlations were computed. The findings revealed that the factors Enjoyment, Concerns & Anxieties, Performance-related confidence, Engagement, Performance orientation, and Persistence are essential to describe upper secondary mathematics students and that Enjoyment, Concerns & Anxieties, Performance-related confidence, and Engagement are highly correlated. We propose that these interdependencies be observed in teacher training as well as in professional development and discuss the implications for the practices of teachers and teacher educators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]