Factors that influence teachers learning to do interviews to understand students' mathematical understandings

Understanding students' understanding of mathematical ideas can inform mathematics teaching, and task-based interviews are one way in which teachers can learn more about their students' understandings. The CIME project was designed to empower mathematics teachers to use interviews to understand their students' mathematical understandings as well as to prepare teachers to use technology-intensive curricula. This study examined the influences on three high school mathematics teachers as they learned to use task-based interviews to understand students' mathematical understandings. The areas of teacher knowledge and conceptions that influenced the teachers we studied were: teachers' mathematical understandings and knowledge of technology and the perceived importance of curriculum topics; teachers' views of knowing mathematics; teachers' perceptions of students' characteristics and needs; and teachers' perceptions of interviewing and the role of questioning in interviews. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Moving Towards a Fair Start: equal gender opportunities and the careers service

Although there is now a considerable literature on gender inequality in education and employment, there is virtually no research on the Careers Service which provides a bridge between the two. Based on a national survey of all Careers Services conducted in 1987, this paper explores the significance afforded to gender discrimination and the nature and content of equal opportunities policies designed to counter it. It draws attention to the differences in meaning which the term ‘equal opportunities’ can have and to the changing context in which equal opportunities policies now operate.     

Critical alignment in inquiry-based practice in developing mathematics teaching

This paper reports a case study from a mathematics teaching developmental research project. The theoretical foundation for the research comprises communities of inquiry and critical alignment, with which the developmental methodology has a particular synergy. This synergy is the main focus of the paper. The paper elaborates theoretical and methodological antecedents of the project and traces these through a case study of developments in the practices of one upper secondary school team and a group of university didacticians (mathematics teacher educators and researchers) during the first year of the project. The case study reveals that critical alignment and inquiry (necessarily) bring uncertainty and risk, and foster tensions within the teachers’ practice and between the practices of teachers and didacticians. In exposing these uncertainties, risks and tensions, the paper points to their value for the learning and knowledge gained by participants.     

Using computer‐aided instruction to support the systematic practice of phonological skills in beginning readers

The paper reports the results of a randomised control trial investigating the use of computer‐aided instruction (CAI) for practising phonological awareness skills with beginning readers. Two intervention groups followed the same phonological awareness programme: one group undertook practice exercises using a computer and the other group undertook practice exercises using a paper‐based format. A third, control group, experienced a practical maths programme, with no explicit literacy or CAI components. Children in all three groups were pre‐ and post‐tested on phonological skills and their ability to apply those skills. Statistical analysis indicated a significant learning advantage accruing to children in the computer‐based group compared with the other groups, particularly in relation to phonological awareness with a modest but significant effect size detected. The advantage was apparent but less strong for the orthographic application of their phonological skills. Analysis by gender indicated that girls in the computer group made more progress than boys.