Rod Nason

Young children's partitioning strategies

Taxonomies for classifying childrens partitioning strategies have generally focused on the contexts in which the strategies occur and whether the strategies generate fair shares. Therefore, the overall aim of this study was to increase our knowledge about young childrens partitioning strategies by setting out not only to identify new partitioning strategies but also to develop a taxonomy for classifying young childrens partitioning strategies in terms of their ability to facilitate the abstraction of the partitive quotient fraction construct from the concrete activity of partitioning objects and/or sets of objects. Clinical interviews were conducted with twelve purposely-selected Year Three students. Each student was presented with a unique set of realistic partitioning tasks. The paper concludes with a taxonomy for: (i) qualitatively evaluating a childs progress towards the abstraction of the partitive quotient fraction construct, and (ii) planning and implementing teaching interventions commensurate with the childs level of progress towards the abstraction of the partitive quotient fraction construct. This taxonomy provides researchers and teachers with means of better utilising childrens informal partitioning strategies as the foundation upon which to further develop their understandings of the partitive quotient fraction construct.

Retooling Asian-Pacific Teachers to Promote Creativity, Innovation and Problem Solving in Science Classrooms

This paper reports on a Professional Learning Programme undertaken by primary school teachers in China that aimed to facilitate the development of ‘adaptive expertise’ in using technology to facilitate innovative science teaching and learning such as that envisaged by the Chinese Ministry of Education’s (2010–2020) education reforms. The study found that the participants made substantial progress towards the development of adaptive expertise manifested not only by advances in the participants’ repertoires of pedagogical content knowledge but also in changes to their levels of confidence and identities as teachers. By the end of the programme, the participants had coalesced into a professional learning community that readily engaged in the sharing, peer review, reuse and adaption, and collaborative design of innovative science learning and assessment activities. The findings from the study indicate that those engaged in the development of Professional Learning Programmes in Asia-Pacific nations need to take cognizance of certain cultural factors and traditions idiosyncratic to the educational systems. This is reflected in the amended set of principles to inform the design and implementation of professional learning programmes presented in the concluding sections of the paper.

Format-free databases and the construction of knowledge in primary school science projects

Most current science education reform documents are placing much emphasis on having students become competent in identifying, accessing and operating upon relevant information sources and in using the information to construct new knowledge. One of the means they suggest for achieving these aims is science project work. However, a review of the research literature indicates that little knowledge construction occurs during science projects. This article reports on a study in which a teacher used the collaborative development of a format-free computer database to facilitate the construction of knowledge by a group of three Year 6 students during a science project.

PRODIGY: diagnosis and remediation in the domain of common fractions

Abstract This paper describes the architecture and functioning of PRODIGY, an intelligent computerbased production rule simulation system used for developing teacher expertise in the diagnosis and remediation of common error patterns in the domain of the addition of common fractions. PRODIGY is able to simulate over 95% of known addition of fraction malrules and thus is able to provide novice teachers with experiences in diagnosing and remediating most of the error patterns manifested within this domain of mathematics