Creating Your Own Symbols: Beginning Algebraic Thinking With Indigenous Students

Because mathematics education devalues Indigenous culture, Indigenous students continue to be the most mathematically disadvantaged group in Australia. Conventional wisdom with regard to Indigenous mathematics education is to utilise practical and visual teaching methods, yet the power of mathematics and the opportunities it brings for advancement lie in symbolic understanding. This paper reports on a Maths as Story Telling (MAST) teaching approach to assist Indigenous students understand algebra through creating and manipulating their own symbols for equations. It discusses effective Indigenous mathematics teaching, describes the MAST approach, analyses it in terms of Ernest’s (2005) semiotic processes, discusses its applications, and draws implications for Indigenous mathematics learning

Indigenous Students and Mathematics: Teachers' Perceptions of the role of Teacher Aides

This study examined teachers' perceptions of the role of teacher aides in mathematics classrooms in rural and remote Indigenous communities. Twelve teachers from three schools in rural and remote Queensland participated in the study. The results from the first year of the project indicated that there were differences in how these teachers worked with their teacher aides, particularly the specific roles assigned to them in the mathematics classroom, with non-Indigenous teacher aides being given greater responsibilities for student learning and Indigenous teacher aides for behavioural management. As a result of teacher aide in-service on mathematics learning, teachers' perception of the Indigenous teacher aides changed, resulting in each being given greater responsibility for student learning

Authority and Esteem Effects of Enhancing Remote Indigenous Teacher-Assistants' Mathematics-Education Knowledge and Skills

The interaction between Australia's Eurocentric education and the complex culture of remote Indigenous communities often results in Indigenous disempowerment and educational underperformance. This paper reports on a mathematics-education research project in a remote community to support Indigenous teacher assistants (ITAs) in mathematics and mathematics tutoring in an attempt to reverse Indigenous mathematics underperformance. It discusses teachers' and ITAs' power and authority within school and community, describes the project's design, and summarises the project's results in terms of affects and knowledge. It draws implications on the relation between ITA professional development (PD), affect, esteem, knowledge, authority, teacher-ITA partnerships, and enhanced Indigenous mathematics outcomes

Empowering Andrea to help Year 5 Students Construct Fraction Understanding

This paper provides a glimpse into the positive effect on student learning as a result of empowering a classroom teacher of 20 years (Andrea) with subject matter knowledge relevant to developing fraction understanding. Having a facility with fractions is essential for life skills in any society, whether metricated or non-metricated, and yet students the world over are failing in this aspect of mathematics (Queensland Studies Authority, 2002; TIMSS, 1997). Understanding fractions requires comprehension and coordination of several powerful mathematical processes (e.g., unitising, reunitising, and multiplicative relationships) (Baturo, 1997, 2000). While this paper will report on student learning outcomes, its major focus is to tell Andrea’s story and from this to draw implications for pre-service education and teaching