An Investigation of Mathematics Strategies in Traditional School Contexts and Real-World Contexts

Julie Clark and Kathy BradyThe purpose of this roundtable is to describe a proposed research project and to seek advice, ideas, and suggestions from participants. The project will address two main questions. Firstly, how do mathematical strategies used in traditional school contexts compare with strategies used in real-world contexts? Research continues to highlight the lack of connections that students make between mathematics used in school and in everyday life. The National Council for Teachers of Mathematics emphasise the importance of students being able to use mathematics in varying situations (2000). In this study students will be presented with basic mathematics tasks in different contexts. For example, they will be asked how much change they would get from $5 for something that cost 65 cents. Next, they will be asked to answer a similar question presented traditionally: 500 ? 65. The second research question associated with this project is: What perceptions do teachers have of students? mathematical strategies? Fennema and Franke (1992) indicate that it is important for teachers to understand students? mathematical thinking and to have good knowledge of various instructional approaches. Teachers will be interviewed concerning their perceptions of students? mathematics learning. During the interviews they will watch DVD excerpts of students solving problems and be asked to make comments on the strategies used.

Reviewing of research papers

Research papers will be blind reviewed by a panel of peers approved by the conference committee. The main purpose of the refereeing process is to contribute to the growth and development of quality practice in mathematics education research. Thus reviewers are asked to assist authors by providing helpful feedback and to comment on the suitability of papers for presentation at the conference. Accordingly, it will not be assumed that published papers presented at the conference will be as polished as articles in scholarly journals. Referees will be asked to assess papers being reviewed against the accepted norms for scholarly works presented at MERGA conferences, as set out above.

Each conference proceedings’ Editorial Team will exercise discretion over the reviewing process.

Reviewers’ comments will be returned to the authors. Authors whose papers are not accepted for publication may be invited by the editorial panel to present their paper at the conference, with an abstract (only) being published in the proceedings. Papers may be rejected outright, with no opportunity for presentation at the conference in an alternative form.

The MERGA website has detailed advice about criteria for reviewing of MERGA papers, review forms, and examples of strong and poor reviews of different types.

An Investigation of Mathematics Strategies in Traditional School Contexts and Real-World Contexts

An Investigation of Mathematics Strategies in Traditional School Contexts and Real-World Contexts

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