Project Outcomes and Rationale
This project, CEMENT (Culture of Evidence-based Mathematics Education for New Teachers), will provide the tools to promote a national culture of evidence-based practice in the preparation of teachers of mathematics. Specifically, participating universities in every state and territory will (1) develop instruments to measure the outcomes of teacher education programs in mathematics in terms of mathematical understanding, appropriate pedagogical knowledge, and attitudes and beliefs about mathematics; (2) generate approaches that will support lecturers in making changes to their mathematics teaching practice informed by the data collected; (3) supply data-driven evidence about effective models of teacher education in mathematics on which course changes can be based; and (4) disseminate findings widely to engage the teacher education and the mathematics and statistics communities in a culture of evidence-based course development for pre-service teachers. Without evidence of successful practices, improvement of teacher preparation for teaching mathematics is difficult, and subject to prevailing opinions rather than being based on information.
This collaborative project involves one university in each Australian state and territory: the University of Queensland (QLD), the University of Melbourne (VIC), the University of New England (NSW), Flinders University (SA), Australian Catholic University, Canberra (ACT), Murdoch University (WA), Charles Darwin University (NT) and the University of Tasmania (TAS) (lead). In this way the project will have impact across Australia and provide state-based change leadership.
CEMENT directly addresses ALTC Priority 1, Academic Standards, assessment practices and reporting, and ALTC Priority 2, Curriculum renewal by establishing a national set of standards in relation to which universities will gather local data about their own students’ performances. Comparison data about each university’s performance against that of all participating universities will lay down benchmarks for improvement, and sharing of best practice models in the teaching of pre-service teachers of mathematics will impact on academic standards and lead to evidence-based curriculum renewal.
Outcomes from the project will be:
Ongoing and increasingly alarming calls for urgent action to address the shortage of mathematics teachers and improve the quality of mathematics teaching in Australia make the focus on mathematics teacher education crucial. In international studies, Australia has slipped in rankings over the period 1995 to 2007, especially at the Year 8 level where it is now outperformed significantly by the United States and England (Australian Council for Educational Research, 2009). The declining rates of participation in high level mathematics courses at Year 12 are threatening the nation’s economic expansion with official estimates predicting a growth rate of 3.5% annually for mathematics and statistics graduates (Brown, 2009) which are unlikely to be met. Recent figures suggest that although participation in mathematics at Year 12 is high at around 90%, rates of uptake of top level courses has declined from 13.9 % of Year 12 students in 2001 to 11.6% in 2007 whereas in the lowest level courses participation rates over the same period rose from 42.3% to 46.4% (Ainley, Kos & Nicholas, 2008). Many teachers are teaching mathematics without a strong mathematical background (Brown, 2009; Human Capital Working Group, Council of Australian Governments (COAG), 2008; Thomas, 2000; Thomson & Fleming, 2004) and in view of the falling participation rates in high levels of mathematics, this is likely to continue.
This collaborative project involves one university in each Australian state and territory: the University of Queensland (QLD), the University of Melbourne (VIC), the University of New England (NSW), Flinders University (SA), Australian Catholic University, Canberra (ACT), Murdoch University (WA), Charles Darwin University (NT) and the University of Tasmania (TAS) (lead). In this way the project will have impact across Australia and provide state-based change leadership.
CEMENT directly addresses ALTC Priority 1, Academic Standards, assessment practices and reporting, and ALTC Priority 2, Curriculum renewal by establishing a national set of standards in relation to which universities will gather local data about their own students’ performances. Comparison data about each university’s performance against that of all participating universities will lay down benchmarks for improvement, and sharing of best practice models in the teaching of pre-service teachers of mathematics will impact on academic standards and lead to evidence-based curriculum renewal.
Outcomes from the project will be:
- Evidence-based changes to mathematics education teaching within participating universities;
- Recommendations about effective models of teacher education for teaching mathematics;
- Processes for bringing about change at unit and course level; and
- Progress towards a national culture of evidence-based practice in relation to mathematics teacher education.
Ongoing and increasingly alarming calls for urgent action to address the shortage of mathematics teachers and improve the quality of mathematics teaching in Australia make the focus on mathematics teacher education crucial. In international studies, Australia has slipped in rankings over the period 1995 to 2007, especially at the Year 8 level where it is now outperformed significantly by the United States and England (Australian Council for Educational Research, 2009). The declining rates of participation in high level mathematics courses at Year 12 are threatening the nation’s economic expansion with official estimates predicting a growth rate of 3.5% annually for mathematics and statistics graduates (Brown, 2009) which are unlikely to be met. Recent figures suggest that although participation in mathematics at Year 12 is high at around 90%, rates of uptake of top level courses has declined from 13.9 % of Year 12 students in 2001 to 11.6% in 2007 whereas in the lowest level courses participation rates over the same period rose from 42.3% to 46.4% (Ainley, Kos & Nicholas, 2008). Many teachers are teaching mathematics without a strong mathematical background (Brown, 2009; Human Capital Working Group, Council of Australian Governments (COAG), 2008; Thomas, 2000; Thomson & Fleming, 2004) and in view of the falling participation rates in high levels of mathematics, this is likely to continue.
"… the subject [mathematics] is taught reasonably well at technical level but not at the excitement level, and it's probably because many of the teachers are being asked to teach outside their own areas of expertise.”
Gavin Brown quoted in The Australian, 11 March 2010
The proposed project is also timely given the imminent implementation of National Professional Standards for Teaching (Ministerial Council for Education, Early Childhood Development and Youth Affairs (MCEEDYA), 2010). The draft standards’ focus on Professional Knowledge, Professional Practice and Professional Engagement will be mirrored in the tools used in CEMENT. The project outcomes will enable mathematics educators to lead the evidence-based evaluation, improvement, and ongoing monitoring that will need to characterise teacher education courses into the future. Existing tools currently used at the University of Tasmania will be adapted to align with the current draft standards, and then used and refined in this project within a recognised conceptual framework for the evaluation of pre-service education programs. Details of the conceptual framework and instruments are provided in the section on Approach.
Australian institutions involved in the education of pre-service teachers provide a diverse range of courses that are informed largely by anecdotal evidence and research conducted elsewhere. The National Numeracy Review Report (COAG, 2008) pointed out: “There are many challenges in the pre-service education of mathematics teachers and many areas where the research knowledge is limited” (p. 71). Goos, Smith and Thornton (2008) indicated that there was a need for large-scale, national studies to establish evidence of best practice in mathematics teacher education. Courses vary in their structure, length and mode of delivery. There is a growing trend towards the use of distance learning technology (Holt & Challis, 2007). Some institutions offer post-graduate courses only while others offer 4-year undergraduate training, and some take account of existing professional experience in schools or training institutions. These pre-service courses attract students including those straight from Year 12, mature age students with no university background, career-change professionals, and para-professionals such as teacher aides seeking to upgrade their qualifications. Many of these students enter with weak mathematical backgrounds.
Australian institutions involved in the education of pre-service teachers provide a diverse range of courses that are informed largely by anecdotal evidence and research conducted elsewhere. The National Numeracy Review Report (COAG, 2008) pointed out: “There are many challenges in the pre-service education of mathematics teachers and many areas where the research knowledge is limited” (p. 71). Goos, Smith and Thornton (2008) indicated that there was a need for large-scale, national studies to establish evidence of best practice in mathematics teacher education. Courses vary in their structure, length and mode of delivery. There is a growing trend towards the use of distance learning technology (Holt & Challis, 2007). Some institutions offer post-graduate courses only while others offer 4-year undergraduate training, and some take account of existing professional experience in schools or training institutions. These pre-service courses attract students including those straight from Year 12, mature age students with no university background, career-change professionals, and para-professionals such as teacher aides seeking to upgrade their qualifications. Many of these students enter with weak mathematical backgrounds.
In terms of school achievement in reading and mathematics in Year 9, students in initial teacher education were less likely than their peers in other courses to come from the highest achievement group (the difference is 20 compared to 36 per cent) and more likely to have been from the low or lowest groups (the difference was 35 compared to 19 per cent). (Ainley, Kos & Nicholas, 2008, p. 58)
This project will address this lack of coherence in mathematics teacher preparation through provision of national benchmarks for graduate teachers of mathematics. Teacher education institutions will be able to use these benchmarks to assess local evidence to inform course design and monitor ongoing improvement. The focus is on preparation to teach mathematics in the middle years of schooling (grades 4/5 to grades 9/10) because there is evidence that it is these years that the decline in interest in mathematics begins (Brown, 2009; McPhan, Morony, Pegg, Cooksey, & Lynch, 2008). By focussing on these grades, almost all pre-service teachers, their lecturers and tutors are included in the project.
Unless otherwise noted, content on this site is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 Unported License.
Visit the 2015 conference website:
www.conversationsonkft.weebly.com
www.conversationsonkft.weebly.com