Katrina Piatek-Jimenez has written an article called: Images of mathematicians: a new perspective on the shortage of women in mathematical careers, which was recently published in ZDM. Here is the abstract:

Though women earn nearly half of the mathematics baccalaureate degrees in the United States, they make up a much smaller percentage of those pursuing advanced degrees in mathematics and those entering mathematics-related careers. Through semi-structured interviews, this study took a qualitative look at the beliefs held by five undergraduate women mathematics students about themselves and about mathematicians. The findings of this study suggest that these women held stereotypical beliefs about mathematicians, describing them to be exceptionally intelligent, obsessed with mathematics, and socially inept. Furthermore, each of these women held the firm belief that they do not exhibit at least one of these traits, the first one being unattainable and the latter two being undesirable. The results of this study suggest that although many women are earning undergraduate degrees in mathematics, their beliefs about mathematicians may be preventing them from identifying as one and choosing to pursue mathematical careers.

Robert K. Sembiring, Sutarto Hadi and Maarten Dolk have written an article about an interesting experimental study related to the current reform movement in Indonesia, where the theory of Realistic Mathematics Education (RME) is being adopted. The article is entitled Reforming mathematics learning in Indonesian classrooms through RME, and it was published online in ZDM on Sunday, August 24. Here is the abstract of the article:

This paper reports an experimental study on the development of exemplary curriculum materials for the teaching of fractions in Indonesian primary schools. The study’s context is the current reform movement adopting realistic mathematics education (RME) theory, known as Pendidikan Matematika Realistik Indonesia (PMRI), and it looked at the role of design research in supporting the dissemination of PMRI. The study was carried out in two cycles of teaching experiments in two primary schools. The findings of the design research signified the importance of collaboration between mathematics educators and teachers in developing RME curriculum materials. The availability of RME curriculum materials is an important component in the success of the PMRI movement, particularly in supporting students and teachers in activity-based mathematics learning. Most of the students and teachers in the two schools positively appraised teaching and learning with the developed materials. Since the teachers were actively involved in developing the materials, they felt a sense of ownership and recognised that their students’ classroom experiences of the materials helped them avoid standard difficulties. That appears to be a particular benefit of the bottom-up approach characteristic of the PMRI movement.

Sigrid Blömeke, Lynn Paine, Richard T. Houang, Feng-Jui Hsieh, William H. Schmidt, M. Teresa Tatto, Kiril Bankov, Tenoch Cedilll, Leland Cogan, Shin Il Han, Marcella Santillan and John Schwille have written an article entitled Future teachers’ competence to plan a lesson: first results of a six-country study on the efficiency of teacher education. The article was published online in ZDM last week. The paper presents data from four countries in relation to the study called: “Mathematics Teaching in the 21st Century (MT21)” (see webpage!). The entire MT21 report is available for free download at the project webpage. Here is a copy of the abstract:

The study “Mathematics Teaching in the 21st Century (MT21)” focuses beyond others on the measurement of teachers’ general pedagogical knowledge (GPK). GPK is regarded as a latent construct embedded in a larger theory of teachers’ professional competence. It is laid out how GPK was defined and operationalized. As part of an international comparison GPK was measured with several complex vignettes. In the present paper, the results of future mathematics teachers’ knowledge from four countries (Germany, South Korea, Taiwan, and the US) with very different teacher-education systems are presented. Significant and relevant differences between the four countries as well as between future teachers at the beginning and at the end of teacher education were found. The results are discussed with reference to cultural discourses about teacher education.

Demetra Pitta-Pantazi and Constantinos Christou have written an article called Cognitive styles, dynamic geometry and measurement performance. The article was recently published online in Educational Studies in Mathematics. Here is the abstract of the article:

This paper reports the outcomes of an empirical study undertaken to investigate the effect of students’ cognitive styles on achievement in measurement tasks in a dynamic geometry learning environment, and to explore the ability of dynamic geometry learning in accommodating different cognitive styles and enhancing students’ learning. A total of 49 6th grade students were tested using the VICS and the extended CSA-WA tests (Peterson, Verbal imagery cognitive styles and extended cognitive style analysis-wholistic analytic test—Administration guide. New Zealand: Peterson, 2005) for cognitive styles. The same students were also administered a pre-test and a post-test involving 20 measurement tasks. All students were taught a unit in measurement (area of triangles and parallelograms) with the use of dynamic geometry, after a pre-test. As expected, the dynamic geometry software seems to accommodate different cognitive styles and enhances students’ learning. However, contrary to expectations, verbalisers and wholist/verbalisers gained more in their measurement achievement in the environment of dynamic geometry than students who had a tendency towards other cognitive styles. The results are discussed in terms of the nature of the measurement tasks administered to the students.

Dor Abrahamson has written an article in Educational Studies in Mathematics about Embodied design: constructing means for constructing meaning:

Design-based research studies are conducted as iterative implementation-analysis-modification cycles, in which emerging theoretical models and pedagogically plausible activities are reciprocally tuned toward each other as a means of investigating conjectures pertaining to mechanisms underlying content teaching and learning. Yet this approach, even when resulting in empirically effective educational products, remains under-conceptualized as long as researchers cannot be explicit about their craft and specifically how data analyses inform design decisions. Consequentially, design decisions may appear arbitrary, design methodology is insufficiently documented for broad dissemination, and design practice is inadequately conversant with learning-sciences perspectives. One reason for this apparent under-theorizing, I propose, is that designers do not have appropriate constructs to formulate and reflect on their own intuitive responses to students’ observed interactions with the media under development. Recent socio-cultural explication of epistemic artifacts as semiotic means for mathematical learners to objectify presymbolic notions (e.g., Radford, Mathematical Thinking and Learning 5(1): 37–70, 2003) may offer design-based researchers intellectual perspectives and analytic tools for theorizing design improvements as responses to participants’ compromised attempts to build and communicate meaning with available media. By explaining these media as potential semiotic means for students to objectify their emerging understandings of mathematical ideas, designers, reciprocally, create semiotic means to objectify their own intuitive design decisions, as they build and improve these media. Examining three case studies of undergraduate students reasoning about a simple probability situation (binomial), I demonstrate how the semiotic approach illuminates the process and content of student reasoning and, so doing, explicates and possibly enhances design-based research methodology.

Michael Weiss, Patricio Herbst and Chialing Chen (all from University of Michigan, Ann Arbor) have written an interesting article about Teachers’ perspectives on “authentic mathematics” and the two-column proof form. The article was published online in Educational Studies in Mathematics on Friday. Here is the abstract:

We investigate experienced high school geometry teachers’ perspectives on “authentic mathematics” and the much-criticized two-column proof form. A videotaped episode was shown to 26 teachers gathered in five focus groups. In the episode, a teacher allows a student doing a proof to assume a statement is true without immediately justifying it, provided he return to complete the argument later. Prompted by this episode, the teachers in our focus groups revealed two apparently contradictory dispositions regarding the use of the two-column proof form in the classroom. For some, the two-column form is understood to prohibit a move like that shown in the video. But for others, the form is seen as a resource enabling such a move. These contradictory responses are warranted in competing but complementary notions, grounded on the corpus of teacher responses, that teachers hold about the nature of authentic mathematical activity when proving.

Mette Andresen and Lena Lindenskov have written an article that was published in ZDM just before the weekend. The article is entitled New roles for mathematics in multi-disciplinary, upper secondary school projects, and here is the abstract:

A new concept, compulsory multi-disciplinary courses, was introduced in upper secondary school curriculum as a central part of a recent reform. This paper reports from a case study of such a triple/four-disciplinary project in mathematics, physics, chemistry and ‘general study preparation’ performed under the reform by a team of experienced teachers. The aim of the case study was to inquire how the teachers met the demands of the introduction of this new concept and, to look for signs of new relations established by the students between mathematics and other subjects, as a result of the multi-disciplinary teaching. The study revealed examples of good practice in planning and teaching. In addition, it served to illuminate interesting aspects of how students perceived the school subject mathematics and its relations to other subjects and to common sense.