Bronwyn F. Ewing

Contextualising the Teaching and Learning of Measurement within Torres Strait Islander Schools.

This paper reports on a mathematics project conducted with six Torres Strait Islander schools and communities by the research team at the YuMi Deadly Centre at QUT. Data collected is from a small focus group of six teachers and two teacher aides. We investigated how measurement is taught and learned by students, their teachers and teacher aides in the community schools. A key focus of the project was that the teaching and learning of measurement be contextualised to the students’ culture, community and home languages. A significant finding from the project was that the teachers had differing levels of knowledge and understanding about how to contextualise measurement to support student learning. For example, an Indigenous teacher identified that mathematics and the environment are relational, that is, they are not discrete and in isolation from one another, rather they mesh together, thus affording the articulation and interchange among and between mathematics and Torres Strait Islander culture.

The identification of teaching interactions used in one-to-one teaching of number in the early years of schooling

Abstract This research paper reports on phase one of an investigation of video recorded intensive one-to-one teaching interactions with 6–7-year-old students who were in their second year of schooling in Australia and identified by the their teacher as low attaining in early number. The two-phased study from which this paper emerges was originally conducted in 1998 as part of my Bachelor of Teaching Honours (Research) program at Southern Cross University Lismore, New South Wales. That study identified teaching interactions particularly suited to one-to-one teaching in the Maths Recovery Program, a program designed for these students who were at risk of failure in early number. Since that time a great deal has not changed with limited literature available that comprehensively reports on teaching interactions in intensive one-to-one settings. Revisiting the original study is considered timely given the increasing number of withdrawal and intensive programs now funded and adopted by schools and yet, rarely reported on in terms of the effectiveness of the teaching interactions that occur in such settings. This paper then presents a discussion of a preliminary series of teaching interactions that either positively and or negatively influence an intensive one-to-one teaching and learning setting.

The development of case studies to evaluate the usefulness of teaching interactions in one-to-one teaching of early number

Abstract This research paper reports on phase two of an Australian study that examined video-recorded intensive one-to-one teaching interactions with 6–7-year-old students who were in their second year of schooling and identified by the their class teacher as low attaining in early number. The two-phased study from which this paper emerges was originally conducted in 1998 as part of my Bachelor of Teaching Honours (Research) program at Southern Cross University Lismore, New South Wales. That study identified teaching interactions particularly suited to one-to-one teaching in the Maths Recovery Program, a program designed for these students who were at risk of failure in early number. A great deal has not changed since that time with limited literature available that comprehensively reports on teaching interactions in intensive one-to-one settings. Revisiting the original study is considered timely because of the increasing number of withdrawal and intensive programs now funded and adopted by schools and yet, rarely reported on in terms of the effectiveness of the teaching interactions that occur in such settings. This paper then builds on from the first research paper, The identification of teaching interactions used in one-to-one teaching of number in the early years of schooling to present a series of case studies of teaching interactions that were identified as positively influencing intensive one-to-one teaching and learning settings.