scholarly journals Sociomathematical Worlds: the Social World of Children's Mathematical Learning in the Middle Primary Years

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Fiona Walls
Keyword(s):  
Social Interactions ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Learning Environments ◽  
Primary Schools ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Primary School Children ◽  
Mathematical Learning ◽  
Mathematical Teaching ◽  
The Social

<p>This thesis presents the findings of a project that explored the ways in which primary school children developed understandings about mathematics, mathematical 'learning' and 'knowing' and themselves as learners of mathematics. The research aimed to describe the children's mathematical learning environments, to explore the ways in which children made meaning about mathematics through social interactions within these environments, and to identify elements of these environments that appeared to enhance or inhibit the children's learning of mathematics. Located within the body of literature that takes a sociocultural view of teaching and learning, the study adopted the theoretical framework of symbolic interactionism because of its usefulness in explaining how, through the social interactions of everyday life, an individual constructs and reconstructs personal versions of 'reality', including a sense of identity. Through this lens, familiar objects, routine events and everyday language surrounding the teaching and learning of mathematics were examined for their significance to young learners. The concept of the sociomathematical world was created and developed to describe the mathematical environment of the child as positioned within wider social networks. The sociomathematical world of the child was seen as the world of everyday life, the arena in which the child, through regular and routine interactions with others, negotiated meanings about, and made personal sense of, mathematics. The research focussed on ten case study children - four girls and six boys - all attending different schools, and selected randomly from the primary schools in the Wellington region of New Zealand. For three years, from the beginning of their third year at school to the end of their fifth, the children were regularly interviewed and observed in their classrooms. Other key participants in their sociomathematical worlds were also interviewed, including families, teachers, principals, and classmates. Evidence of teaching and learning was also gathered from children's books and assessment records, and linked to local and global curriculum documentation. A cumulative picture was compiled of the mathematical teaching and learning environments of these ten children. Originally intended to be presented as separate biographies, the data were instead collated and reported according to the four distinctive recurring themes that emerged from the findings: the emphasis of speed in mathematics teaching and learning; identification and differentiation based on socially constructed perceptions of mathematical 'ability'; the establishment of 'doing maths' as solo written work; the presentation of mathematics as consisting of 'correct' and non-negotiable facts and procedures. These dominant approaches to teaching and learning of mathematics were found to conform to deeply entrenched traditions, in which the learner was viewed as the passive recipient of, rather than an active participant in, education in general and mathematics education in particular. It was found that these taken-for-granted pedagogical cultures were not explicitly supported by the official curriculum. Marked negative effects of these common teaching practices were commonly observed: alienation, marginalisation and impoverished learning. These impacts were experienced in varying forms and at varying times, by all the case study children, suggesting that changed views of mathematics and of mathematical teaching and learning are needed if the learning potential of all children is to be fully realised.</p>

scholarly journals Sociomathematical Worlds: the Social World of Children's Mathematical Learning in the Middle Primary Years

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Fiona Walls
Keyword(s):  
Social Interactions ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Learning Environments ◽  
Primary Schools ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Primary School Children ◽  
Mathematical Learning ◽  
Mathematical Teaching ◽  
The Social

<p>This thesis presents the findings of a project that explored the ways in which primary school children developed understandings about mathematics, mathematical 'learning' and 'knowing' and themselves as learners of mathematics. The research aimed to describe the children's mathematical learning environments, to explore the ways in which children made meaning about mathematics through social interactions within these environments, and to identify elements of these environments that appeared to enhance or inhibit the children's learning of mathematics. Located within the body of literature that takes a sociocultural view of teaching and learning, the study adopted the theoretical framework of symbolic interactionism because of its usefulness in explaining how, through the social interactions of everyday life, an individual constructs and reconstructs personal versions of 'reality', including a sense of identity. Through this lens, familiar objects, routine events and everyday language surrounding the teaching and learning of mathematics were examined for their significance to young learners. The concept of the sociomathematical world was created and developed to describe the mathematical environment of the child as positioned within wider social networks. The sociomathematical world of the child was seen as the world of everyday life, the arena in which the child, through regular and routine interactions with others, negotiated meanings about, and made personal sense of, mathematics. The research focussed on ten case study children - four girls and six boys - all attending different schools, and selected randomly from the primary schools in the Wellington region of New Zealand. For three years, from the beginning of their third year at school to the end of their fifth, the children were regularly interviewed and observed in their classrooms. Other key participants in their sociomathematical worlds were also interviewed, including families, teachers, principals, and classmates. Evidence of teaching and learning was also gathered from children's books and assessment records, and linked to local and global curriculum documentation. A cumulative picture was compiled of the mathematical teaching and learning environments of these ten children. Originally intended to be presented as separate biographies, the data were instead collated and reported according to the four distinctive recurring themes that emerged from the findings: the emphasis of speed in mathematics teaching and learning; identification and differentiation based on socially constructed perceptions of mathematical 'ability'; the establishment of 'doing maths' as solo written work; the presentation of mathematics as consisting of 'correct' and non-negotiable facts and procedures. These dominant approaches to teaching and learning of mathematics were found to conform to deeply entrenched traditions, in which the learner was viewed as the passive recipient of, rather than an active participant in, education in general and mathematics education in particular. It was found that these taken-for-granted pedagogical cultures were not explicitly supported by the official curriculum. Marked negative effects of these common teaching practices were commonly observed: alienation, marginalisation and impoverished learning. These impacts were experienced in varying forms and at varying times, by all the case study children, suggesting that changed views of mathematics and of mathematical teaching and learning are needed if the learning potential of all children is to be fully realised.</p>

scholarly journals Inquiry-Based Learning on the Cloud

2016 ◽  
pp. 291-310 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Mikroyannidis ◽  
Alexandra Okada ◽  
Andre Correa ◽  
Peter Scott
Keyword(s):  
Learning Environments ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Information Sources ◽  
Working Environment ◽  
Learning Needs ◽  
Inquiry Based Learning ◽  
Approach To Learning ◽  
Novel Approach ◽  
Education Community

Cloud Learning Environments (CLEs) have recently emerged as a novel approach to learning, putting learners in the spotlight and providing them with the cloud-based tools for building their own learning environments according to their specific learning needs and aspirations. Although CLEs bring significant benefits to educators and learners, there is still little evidence of CLEs being actively and effectively used in the teaching and learning process. This chapter addresses this issue by introducing a European initiative called weSPOT (Working Environment with Social, Personal and Open Technologies for Inquiry-based Learning) for supporting and enhancing inquiry-based learning in STEM education via a cloud-based inquiry toolkit. The chapter presents evidence of using this toolkit within a case study that investigates how a secondary education community of students / co-learners selects information sources on the web and identifies factors associated with the reliability of information sources during their collaborative inquiry (co-inquiry) project in online environments.

scholarly journals Learning Analytics in a Virtual Learning Environment: the challenge of mapping socio-affective scenarios

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (6) ◽  
pp. 190-204
Author(s):  
Jacqueline Mayumi Akazaki ◽  
Leticia Rocha Machado ◽  
Ketia Kellen Araújo da Silva ◽  
Patricia Alejandra Behar
Keyword(s):  
Social Interactions ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Learning Analytics ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Virtual Learning ◽  
Virtual Learning Environment ◽  
Pedagogical Strategies ◽  
The Social ◽  
Visualization Of Data

Virtual courses are increasingly being offered in Brazil, making it imperative to develop technological resources and research to help in the teaching and learning processes in this modality. One approach is to analyze student's socio-affective profile in Virtual Learning Environments (VLE). The co-operative learning network (ROODA) VLE has two features called the Social Map (SM) and Affective Map (AM), which can both contribute to the visualization of data regarding social interaction indicators and students' moods in the environment. The SM presents the social relations formed through indicators, which are the absence; collaboration; the distance from the class; evasion; informal groups and popularity, enabling the identification of the participating subjects in the form of sociograms. The AM identifies students' moods graphically through indicators, which are excitement, discouragement, satisfaction, and dissatisfaction. Thus, this article aims to map the possible recurrent socio-affective scenarios in a VLE using Learning Analytics (LA). LA is defined as measurement, collection, analysis, and reporting of data about students and their contexts to understand as well as optimize learning and the environments in which it occurs. It can also contribute to the understanding of student's learning profile, based on social and affective aspects, thus allowing the teacher to develop pedagogical strategies consistent with the needs of each subject. The importance of integrating the possible social and affective scenarios was verified using LA, making it possible to deepen the comprehension of the subjective and qualitative questions regarding the students' interactions in the VLE. In this study, the scenarios are understood as the intersection between the Affective Map and Social Map indicators identified in a VLE. It has both a qualitative and quantitative approach. The choice is qualitatively justified because the research object involves social and affective phenomena that were subjectively expressed in texts and social interactions manifested in the ROODA VLE. It is quantitatively justified by the need to measure the mapping of socio-affective indicators through social parameters and moods applying LA. The subjects were undergraduate students who participated in distance learning courses at a Brazilian public university that used the ROODA VLE in the second semester of 2019. Data were collected from social and affective maps to identify if there was a relationship between them. As a result, based on the existing indicators of social interactions and moods, the socio-affective indicators were created using LA in order to analyze the students’ behavior in relation to the forms of interaction and communication that occur in the ROODA VLE.

scholarly journals Teaching and Learning Arabic as a Second Language: A Case Study of Dubai

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (05) ◽  
pp. 052-061
Author(s):  
MOHMED MOGHAZY
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Primary Schools ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Qualitative Case Study ◽  
Policy Practice ◽  
Curriculum Review ◽  
Immigrant Populations ◽  
Main Challenge

Enrolment into Arabic as a second language (ASL) in Dubai has increased steadily due to the high influx of immigrant populations. Although Arabic is the primary language in Dubai mandatory taught in primary schools in Dubai, training and learning face challenges that affect learning a teaching objective. The extant investigation aimed to examine the teaching and learning of ASL in Dubai through exploring the importance of ASL, ALS programs in Dubai, ASL changes and solutions, and the role of technology infusion and motivation in ASL training and learning. The examination utilized a qualitative case study where seven teachers and eight learners were interviewed. The researcher analyzed the data using thematic analysis. The data obtained revealed that ASL is important among non-Arabic natives and immigrants since its improved communication and interaction. The main challenge noted included curriculum shortcomings, inadequate training and learning, poor technology utilization, and insufficient learning times. The findings suggested curriculum review, increase in the technology used in training and learning, and allocation of more time for ASL lessons to curb the challenges. The examinations discuss the policy, practice, and research implications of the findings. Although the findings are insightful in ASL training and learning in Dubai, the researcher recommended extensive research using different methodologies, sample sizes, and other cities in the UAE.

scholarly journals Classroom assemblage: the vibrant setting of the schooling process

2016 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 580
Author(s):  
Paula Cristina Lameu
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Classroom Environment ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Post Secondary ◽  
The Social ◽  
Multiple Case ◽  
Social Realm ◽  
Schooling Process ◽  
Matter Energy

Some scholars and researchers have been claiming we are in a New Materialist and Posthumanist era. It means that for the ones who are researching in Social Sciences, the focus is not only the human as the centre and the cause of what happens in the social realm. For human, nonhuman and inhuman are attributed the same importance in research once all of them are components of reality, inserted in nature.Reality is regarded as complex, not simple straightforward isolated cause and effect processes. This is how the classroom is supposed to be observed in educational research: not only teaching and learning, but these two processes and policy making, and identity construction, and emotional flows, and curriculum, and schooling, and…, and…The purpose of this paper is to reflect upon the complexity of the classroom environment regarded as an assemblage. The hypothesis is that all the components of the assemblage are equally vital, although some components are more vibratory than others. The theory of Vitalism from Driesch (1914) and the Vital Materialism from Bennett (2010a, 2010b) are used as the theoretical tools for analysis. Assemblage Ethnography (YOUDELL, 2015; YOUDELL and MCGIMPSEY, 2015) is the methodology of data collection. A multiple case study was developed in three different schools in United Kingdom: one Primary, one Secondary and one Post-secondary. The results suggest that teacher and students are the components who most influence on the classroom assemblage composition, decomposition and recomposition orienting the flows of matter-energy once they are change-creating agents.

Virtual World Classrooms

2014 ◽  
pp. 233-260 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan Martin Meggs ◽  
Sharon Kibbe ◽  
Annette Greer
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Reality ◽  
Learning Environments ◽  
Interior Design ◽  
Second Life ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Outcome Evaluation ◽  
Educational Value ◽  
Traditional Course ◽  
Laboratory Component

This chapter provides a comprehensive case study to demonstrate the longitudinal development of online pedagogy for higher education through a lens of interior design. The chapter presents constructivist theory as a guiding pedagogical framework for the creation of learning environments within Second Life (SL) virtual reality. Details of the rigorous process of incorporation of SL, as an enhancement to a traditional course with a laboratory component, is presented to validate the integrity of the scholarship of teaching and learning undertaken in the exemplar case study. The concluding components of the chapter review the iterative process of course outcome evaluation compared to course and accreditation standards to further demonstrate the educational value of virtual reality as an environment for learning.

Maximizing Multicultural Online Learning Experiences with the Social Presence Model, Course Examples, and Specific Strategies

2012 ◽  
pp. 395-413 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aimee L. Whiteside ◽  
Amy Garrett Dikkers
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Online Learning ◽  
Learning Communities ◽  
Learning Environments ◽  
Social Presence ◽  
Cultural Learning ◽  
Online Interactions ◽  
The Social ◽  
Prior Experiences

This chapter presents Whiteside’s (2007) Social Presence Model, course examples, and specific strategies and explains how such factors help facilitators maximize interactions in multicultural, online learning environments. The model provides a framework rooted in socio-cultural learning, linguistic nuances, learning communities, prior experiences, and instructor investment. The chapter also illustrates how the Social Presence Model, coupled with examples from a Human Rights Education case study and research-based strategies, can make significant differences in online interactions.

Information and Communication Technologies

2008 ◽  
pp. 1047-1065
Author(s):  
Glenn Finger ◽  
Maret McGlasson ◽  
Paul Finger
Keyword(s):  
Learning Environments ◽  
Information And Communication Technologies ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Course Design ◽  
Communication Technologies ◽  
Learner Centered ◽  
Learning Stories ◽  
Information And Communication ◽  
Portfolio Approach

Teaching and learning in the 21st century should be markedly different from earlier times through the design of new teaching and learning environments. Through the presentation of three models of technology-rich learning environments (teacherdirected, learner-centered and mediated), this chapter provides a case study of the design and delivery of a course called Learning with Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) guided by a mediated learner approach, using new approaches to using ICTs and assessment for learning as key course design drivers. That course aims to prepare future teachers who demonstrate strong theoretical and practical understanding of designing and creating effective ICT teaching and learning experiences, and are confident and proficient users of ICTs. We provide an analysis of the implementation of that course through the presentation of the learning stories and reflections of students. Specific discussion is provided about the conceptualization and implementation of an e-portfolio approach to promote deep learning.

Fostering a happy positive learning environment for generalist pre-service teachers: building confidence that promotes wellbeing

2019 ◽  
Vol 36 (02) ◽  
pp. 183-196 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dawn Joseph
Keyword(s):  
Learning Environments ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Qualitative Case Study ◽  
Questionnaire Data ◽  
Learning Space ◽  
Health And Wellbeing ◽  
Bachelor Of Education ◽  
Positive Learning Environment ◽  
Generalist Teachers

AbstractMusic is more than just sounds; engaging in music activities in educational settings may foster a sense of wellbeing. This paper explores whether positive learning environments can change attitudes and build confidence of students undertaking the Bachelor of Education (primary) program. As part of a wider study in Melbourne (Australia), using questionnaire data, this qualitative case study reports on two overarching themes (Wellbeing and Learning, and Skill Development and Confidence). I contend that a happy and safe teaching and learning space may promote and nurture the health and wellbeing of students who lack the confidence to teach music as generalist teachers.

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