A growing body of research supports writing as a means to learn mathematics. Although introductory courses have benefited the most from the spread of this mode of learning, writing may be promoted in advanced courses. This paper reports on writing tasks in a complex analysis course where the primary goal was for students to investigate…

This is an exploratory study considering instructional methods in mathematics education. The study examined misconceptions arising from selected assignments undertaken by sixty-five students. The students were attending a calculus mathematical course unit on limits of functions, in different academic areas offered at selected tertiary institutions…

The structure sense is a part that must be learned in order to help understand and construct connection in abstract algebra. This study aimed at building the pattern of a structure sense as a profile of the structure sense in group property. Using a qualitative study, the structure sense of group property was explored through lecturing activity of…

Our research includes undergraduate students who major in primary school education. Their academic background is prevailingly in the humanities. This poses specific demands on their mathematics instruction at university. To attract them to their mathematics course and raise its effectiveness, we use a series of activities. Writing assignments…

Growing from the commognitive framework, this study is concerned with objectification -- a special way of talking about mathematical objects, which is key to one's concept formation. The study explores how objectification can be manifested in the discourse on square roots that unfolds in writing. The data comes from a class in a foundation…

Specific acts of problem solving with rates and ratios were interpreted using a journey metaphor derived from Skemp's (1979) construct of director systems. To successfully undertake a problem solving journey a learner must recognise their starting place (present state), have a sense of destination (goal state), and co-ordinate sub-routes along the…

The findings discussed here are a small part of a larger study entitled, "Encouraging Persistence Maintaining Challenge". The paper reports five teachers' observations of the implementation of a task which was new to them. The teachers were asked to identify aspects of the task which they perceived as challenging for the Year 6 students.…

The ubiquitous practice of providing worked solutions to exercises in mathematics education has been under-researched. Little is known about what elements of a worked solution are valued by students. This exploratory study sought in-depth feedback from six undergraduate students who experienced a range of worked solutions designed to encourage…

D. Elkonin's thesis that thinking is much more closely related to writing than to oral speech formed the basis of our three-year formative experiment at the elementary school level. In order to test this idea, second-graders through fourth-graders were given a few assignments in which they were asked to exchange thoughts in writing with their…

This paper reports research on student produced screencasts to support learning. Participants in a Mathematics for Teachers course were asked to create and peer critique screencasts to explain concepts (year 4 to 9 level). They were also asked about their experience with screencasting and its impact on their own teaching and learning. This paper…

This research study investigates how pre-service teachers integrate statistical content, students' thinking, and pedagogy as they examine how 11- to 12-year olds develop mathematically. The findings provide insights into: a) how pre-service teachers identify some of the difficulties that students commonly have, and b) what pedagogical approaches…

In this paper, we report on the impact of four activities and two interviews on the organization of an introductory statistics course attended by future mathematics teachers at the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil. The activities were designed to enhance students' learning and collaborative knowledge construction, based on Vygotsky's…

As part of one of the undergraduate Bachelor of Education units offered as a specialisation unit in primary mathematics education at The University of Notre Dame Australia, the pre-service teachers were asked to complete an assignment. In this assignment they were given 12 typical algebra text book problems which they were asked to solve and then…

This paper reports a study on the use of ICT to teach parabolic functions to secondary school students. The project was informed by the need to find better ways of presenting parabolic functions to secondary school students in order to improve their learning of the concepts and improve their interest and performance in mathematics. The study was…

In a statistics course for bachelor students in econometrics a new format was adopted in which students were encouraged to study more actively and in which cooperative learning and peer teaching was implemented. Students had to work in groups of two or three students where each group had to perform certain tasks. One of these tasks was: explaining…