Mathematics Education Abstracts of Presentations

Secondary school teachers’ perceptions of diagrams in mathematics

Manju Manoharan

The revised secondary school mathematics curriculum places emphasis on Big Ideas in Mathematics, which includes Diagrams. To support the use of diagrams by teachers as a Big Idea it is pertinent to explore their perceptions. This will allow for appropriate developments in support of enhancing their pedagogies for mathematics. This study examined secondary school teachers’ perceptions of diagrams in mathematics. It focused on two aspects: i) teachers’ perceptions on the utility value of diagrams and how they incorporate them in their instructional practice and ii) teachers’ perceptions about their students’ use of diagrams in mathematics. An open-ended survey was administered to 20 secondary school teachers, with at least three years of mathematics teaching experience, seeking their perceptions. Findings of the study will be shared during the presentation.

Constructivist Learning Design for Singapore Secondary Mathematics Curriculum: a tripartite synergy of research, practice, and policy

Lee Ngan Hoe, Gayatri Balakrishnan, Cynthia Seto, Pang Yen Ping & Chew Chong Kiat

A key enabler in realizing and translating pedagogical innovations require the synergy among research, practice and policy. The importance of this tripartite relationship has been pointed out in past research, with local examples across a range of curriculum range areas highlighted (Tan et. al., 2015). In Mathematics and Mathematics Education Academic Group, a key project that exemplified the synergistic collaboration among researchers, practitioners, and policy makers was the “Constructivist Learning Design for Singapore Secondary Mathematics Curriculum” (project code DEV 04/17 LNH). To support and sustain the use of a constructivist learning design (CLD) that might be better aligned to the learning experiences encouraged in the enhanced secondary mathematics curriculum (Ministry of Education, 2012, 2020), the research involved strong collaboration from NIE researchers, a Curriculum Specialist from Curriculum Planning Development Division (CPDD, Ministry of Education), and Master Teachers from Academy of Singapore Teachers (AST). In the three-year project, the team developed and validated the CLD, and established a Networked Learning Community (NLC) that helps to champion the CLD after the research.

In this presentation, members from the research team will provide insights into this collaborative tripartite relationship in promoting and sustaining the CLD approach in the Singapore secondary mathematics classroom. Associate Professor Lee Ngan Hoe, the Principal Investigator (PI) of the project will elucidate the research component, sharing the CLD from its conceptualisation to its execution and achievements. Commenting from the policy perspective, Ms Gayatri Balakrishnan, Lead Specialist from CPDD and a co-PI of the project, will describe how the CLD project provided a vehicle for her to communicate and translate the aims of the revised curriculum through task design, and to work with teachers in co-creating knowledge that impacted their practice. Shedding light on the CLD project from the practice lens will be Dr Cynthia Seto, Principal Master Teacher and a co-PI of the project. Joining her in her commentary are Ms Pang Yen Ping and Mr Chew Chong Kiat, both Master Teachers and collaborators of the project. They will reflect on their journey in building a community of practitioners, addressing gaps in practice, translating and scaling research across schools, and shaping the inquiry framework for the mathematics classroom. The presentation will conclude to highlight the nature of this tripartite relationship and reflect on the potential of such models in fulfilling the research-practice nexus in future mathematics research projects.