O presente estudo insere-se na linha de pesquisa Currículos, ensino e aprendizagem em Matemática, do Grupo de Estudos e Pesquisa em Educação Matemática e Educação (GEPEME), da área de Ensino de Matemática e Ciências do Programa de Estudos Pós-Graduados em Educação da Faculdade de Educação da Universidade de São Paulo (USP) e tem como objetivo investigar em que medida o conhecimento matemático é usado na sociedade contemporânea e como se manifesta nas relações de poder; e compreender sobre e como as práticas de significação interferem na organização e construção do currículo da Matemática da Educação Básica. Metodologicamente, inclui-se numa abordagem qualitativa de pesquisa, na modalidade ensaio teórico e articula práticas discursivas que têm sido pouco confrontadas com a Educação Matemática, mais precisamente, com o currículo da Matemática escolar, ao longo dos últimos anos. Teoricamente, fundamenta-se em estudos sobre as diferentes teorias de currículo procurando analisar o papel que as disciplinas escolares ocupam em cada uma dessas teorias; em estudos sobre a centralidade da cultura para discutir as questões da contemporaneidade; e em estudos na área de Educação Matemática, tais como Etnomatemática...

Nesta dissertação, apresentamos algumas linhas de pesquisa que podem levar a uma abordagem na qual o próprio conteúdo matemático seja influenciado pelo uso da História da Matemática em sala de aula. Não se trata apenas de ilustrar as aulas de Matemática com histórias que divirtam, como biografias de matemáticos famosos. Nem simplesmente de acrescentar mais conteúdo ao currículo elementar de Matemática, para recheá-lo de referências históricas diretas que de algum modo ajudem a demonstrar a importância ou a beleza do assunto que se quer ensinar. O que pretendemos fazer aqui é contribuir para o estudo de uma utilização muito mais profunda do recurso à História da Matemática. Esse estudo deveria levar em consideração a existência de um encadeamento lógico característico na construção do conhecimento científico e outro na sistematização, na formalização desse conhecimento. A nosso ver, a ordem lógica mais adequada para o ensino de Matemática não é a do conhecimento matemático sistematizado, mas sim aquela que revela a Matemática enquanto Ciência em construção. O recurso à História da Matemática tem, portanto, um papel decisivo na organização do conteúdo que se quer ensinar, iluminando-o...

A Matemática tem despertado forte interesse quanto ao seu ensino nos diversos níveis, com farta quantidade de estudos que visam diagnosticar as causas que produzem os desvios na aquisição do conhecimento matemático. Esses diagnósticos e as propostas de solução abrangem, entre outros, conteúdos, métodos, relação professor-aluno e livros didáticos. Esses percursos de investigação têm a intenção de amenizar ou resolver os problemas do processo de ensino e de aprendizagem em Matemática. Essas pesquisas têm se concentrado no trabalho empírico das aplicações de atividades para grupos de professores e alunos ou na análise de aspectos pedagógico, metodológico e didático de conteúdos com discussões abordadas num determinado período de tempo. Em geral, a Matemática é apresentada fundamentada nos conteúdos e nos métodos de forma essencialmente fragmentada, reprodutiva e tecnicista, desprovida de uma abordagem das ideias fundamentais, de um tratamento como cultura geral, do valor humano e do valor social da matemática. Essa abordagem consolida a concepção de que a matemática, cada vez mais, se distancia do interesse coletivo como um domínio de especialistas. Contrariamente, a matemática tem se constituído numa das áreas do conhecimento mais valorizadas em todos os sistemas de ensino em todo o mundo...

Como o termo matemática vem sendo usado na literatura acadêmica da Educação Matemática? Esta é a questão inicial que orienta este estudo investigativo realizado com base em publicações e pesquisas acadêmicas recentes em Educação Matemática. Com base nesses documentos, verificou-se a ocorrência, em freqüência significativa, de diversas adjetivações do termo matemática tais como: matemática escolar, matemática da rua, matemática acadêmica, matemática popular, matemática do cotidiano, etc. A partir da análise de alguns desses textos, constatou-se que as adjetivações, que ocorrem geralmente aos pares, apontam especificidades das matemáticas, tais como, diferenças em resultados, processos, valores, significados, conceitos, etc. A partir de uma visão de conjunto das especificidades apontadas nos textos pesquisados, as diversas adjetivações são interpretadas como jogos de linguagem que não possuiriam uma essência, mas apresentariam semelhanças de famílias, no sentido dado por Wittgenstein a este conceito. Para formular a questão acima, inspiramo-nos nos conceitos desse filósofo, bem como em sua concepção de filosofia, que possui uma perspectiva de ampliação dos significados alcançada mediante as descrições dos usos de um conceito...

This paper discusses the conceptions, practices and reflections about practices of a mathematics teacher, Maria, with respect to classroom communication and their change during the activity of a collaborative project involving a researcher and two other mathematics teachers. The case study of this teacher, who teaches at grades 5-6, draws on interviews and participant observation of the collaborative project meetings. The results show the relevance of the project to develop the teacher’s understanding of communication issues in her classroom, putting her practices under scrutiny, and developing richer communication processes between her and her students.

The aim of this paper is to present the new and innovative mathematics curriculum for elementary levels that is being implemented in the Portuguese basic education system (students from 1st to 9th grade) through an overview of an ongoing study of implementation/experimentation of this curriculum. A specific mechanism was implemented in the field to provide scientific and pedagogical support to the development of the new elementary mathematics curriculum (NPMEB) implementation at all grade levels and all over the country. In particular, the NPMEB is being experimented by a set of teachers that teach in their own classes and that have been trained and accompanied along the experience by the different authors of the program. We will focus on some classroom practices, sharing innovative and creative ideas of teachers and students, grounded on some of the tasks used by the teachers. The preliminary results suggest that some improvements are already visible, namely regarding students’ attitudes and mathematical competences and teachers’ practice

This paper presents a framework for an inquiry-based approach to mathematics teaching. It was developed by combining theoretical perspectives and case studies of experienced teacher that usually conduct inquiry based teaching of mathematics. This framework describes the actions teachers intentionally perform with two identified purposes: to promote the mathematical learning of the students and to manage the students and the class as a whole.

Students’ attitudes toward mathematics have been known to influence students’ participation, engagement, and achievement in mathematics. A variety of instruments have been developed to measure students’ attitudes toward mathematics for example Mathematics Attitude Scale (Aiken, 1974), Fennema-Sherman Mathematics Attitudes Scales (Fennema & Sherman, 1976), and Attitudes Toward Mathematics Inventory (ATMI) (Tapia & Marsh, 1996). The purpose of this paper is to report the validation of the ATMI instrument. It was administered to 699 Year 7 and 8 students in 14 schools in South Australia. The students responded on a five-point Likert scale. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) supported the original four-factor correlated structure based on several fit indices. The validation provided evidence that ATMI can be a viable scale to measure students’ attitudes toward mathematics in a South Australian context; Aysha Abdul Majeed, I Gusti Ngurah Darmawan, Peggy Lynch

The views expressed in this report are those of the authors and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of Defense or U.S. Government.; This report contains project summaries of the research projects in the Department of Applied Mathematics. A list ofrecent publications is also included, which consists of conference presentations and publications, books, contributions to books, published journal papers, and technical reports. Thesis abstracts of students advised by faculty in the Department are also included.

The views expressed in this report are those of the authors and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of Defense or the U.S. Government.; This report contains summaries of research projects in the Department of Mathematics. A list of recent publications is also included which consists of conference presentations and publications, books, contributions to books, published journal papers, technical reports, and thesis abstract.

The views expressed in this report are those of the authors and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of Defense or the U.S. Government.; This report contains summaries of research projects in the Department of Mathematics. A list of recent publications is also included which consists of conference presentations and publications, books, contributions to books, published journal papers, technical reports, and thesis abstracts.

The views expressed in this report are those of the authors and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of Defense or the U.S. Government.; This report contains summaries of research projects in the Department of Mathematics. A list of recent publications is also included which consists of conference presentations and publications, books, contributions to books, published journal papers, technical reports, and thesis abstracts.

The views expressed in this report are those of the authors and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of Defense or U.S. Government.; This report contains project summaries of the research projects in the Department of Mathematics. A list of recent publications is also included, which consists of conference presentations and publications, books, contributions to books, published journal papers, and technical reports. Thesis abstracts of students advised by faculty in the Department are also included.

Chairman of the Applied Mathematics Department Carlos Borges surveys 100 years of NPS math history.

The Department of Applied Mathematics has a multi-faceted mission to provide an exceptional mathematical education focused on the unique needs of NPS students, to conduct relevant research, and to provide service to the broader community. A strong and vibrant Department of Applied Mathematics is essential to the university's goal of becoming a premiere research university. Because research in mathematics often impacts science and engineering in surprising ways, the department encourages mathematical explorations in a broad range of areas in applied mathematics with specific thrust areas that support the mission of the school.

peer-reviewed; This research study is aimed at improving the quality of the mathematics textbooks available for junior cycle students. It is widely agreed that there is room for improvement with regard to the quality of mathematics at both junior and senior cycle level in Ireland. One such area which can be improved is the e ectiveness of the resources available in both junior and senior cycle mathematics classrooms. While the TIMSS report (Valverde et al., 2002) has explored textbooks on an international scale, minimal research (minor role in TIMSS Report) has been carried out on Irish mathematics textbooks. Considering the level of responsibility shouldered by mathematics textbooks, there is an obvious gap in mathematics education research. The aim of this study is to investigate the quality of the mathematics textbooks currently in use at junior secondary school level in Ireland. This is achieved by investigating, extending and applying suitable methodological tools for textbook analysis. Ultimately the aim of this research is to improve the quality of teaching and learning of mathematics at junior cycle level which should feed directly into improving the quality of mathematics at senior cycle. This will be achieved by rst measuring the quality of the current junior cycle mathematics textbooks and then highlighting the role of improved textbooks in students' conceptual under- standing. At present in Ireland...

The purpose of this study was to determine the extent to which gender differences exist in student attitudes toward mathematics and in their performance in mathematics at the Grade Seven and Eight level. The study also questioned how parents influence the attitudes of this grade level of male and female students toward mathematics. Historically, the literature has demonstrated gender differences in the attitudes of students toward mathematics, and in parental support for classroom performance in mathematics. This study was an attempt to examine these differences at one senior public school in the Peel Board of Education. One hundred three Grade Seven and Eight students at a middle school in the Peel Board of Education volunteered to take part in a survey that examined their attitudes toward mathematics, their perceptions of their parents' attitudes toward mathematics and support for good performance in the mathematics classroom, parental expectations for education and future career choices. Gender differences related to performance levels in the mathematics classroom were examined using Pearson contingency analyses. Items from the survey that showed significant differences involved confidence in mathematics and confidence in writing mathematics tests...

Research on English Language Learners’ (ELL) test performance in relation to their language use at home and attitudes towards mathematics have rarely been investigated. This study examines the effects of different test formats and constructs, learner characteristics, and attitudes towards mathematics on ELLs’ performance in the Education Quality Accountability Office (EQAO) Grade 9 mathematics test. The participants include a total of 2867 ELLs in Grade 9 who participated in the EQAO Grade 9 mathematics test (1887 from the academic course and 980 from the applied course). The overall results of the study supported the following conclusions. First, ELLs tend to score better in Multiple Choice Questions (MCQ) over Open Response Questions (ORQ), and language use at home has interaction effects on their performances on various test formats and constructs. Secondly, significant interactions occurred between language use at home and ELLs’ performance of test formats and constructs. In addition, ELLs who speak another language (only another language) scored higher in performance in both test formats and constructs than ELLs who spoke only English at home. From the ELLs’ questionnaire responses at both the academic and applied levels...

This article describes the experiences of a beginning mathematics teacher, Matt, across his first three years of teaching proof in a high school geometry course. Matt’s past experiences with mathematics influenced his beliefs about what he could and could not do to help his students learn how to prove. During his first year of teaching proof, Matt claimed that you cannot teach someone to write a proof. Over time, however, Matt eventually developed some strategies for teaching proof to his students. Within this work is an interest in learning more about how a teacher learns to teach proof to students who are just learning how to construct a formal proof. This case highlights the importance of pedagogical content knowledge.; This research was supported, in part, by the National Science Foundation under Grant no. 0347906 (Beth Herbel-Eisenmann, PI).

Jansen, Amanda Marie; This qualitative study examined factors which, according to the students, contributed to changes to or preservation of underrepresented students' mathematics identities between their senior year of high school and completion of their freshman year of college. Specifically, the participants of this study were asked, during three one-on-one interviews, to reflect on results from a prior study in which they were participants (Marzocchi, 2013) to examine whether their mathematics identities had changed over time. The design of this study was driven by an overarching goal of examining recruitment and retention of underrepresented students in mathematics-intensive postsecondary degrees. As a means of encouraging more underrepresented students to continue postsecondary study of mathematics, I chose to focus this study on mathematics identity development. Hence, the primary research question that was addressed was What do underrepresented students report about factors that contributed to their mathematics identities after completing their first year of college, as compared to their mathematics identities at the completion of high school? To address this question, I necessarily needed to address two sub-questions: (a) How do underrepresented college freshmen describe their mathematics identities? and (b) How...