Mathematics engagement in an Australian lower secondary school
Author(s)
Norton, Stephen
Griffith University Author(s)
Year published
2016
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
The importance of actively engaging in mathematics discourse in order to learn mathematics is well recognized. In this paper, I use Basil Bernstein’s concepts of pedagogic discourse to document and analyse academic learning time of students in Years 8 and 9 at a suburban lower secondary school: in particular, for what proportion of class time students reported being academically engaged, their explanations for this engagement and how they felt about the discourse. It was found that many students had disengaged from mathematical endeavour as a result of the failure of the instructional discourse either to engage students or ...
View more >The importance of actively engaging in mathematics discourse in order to learn mathematics is well recognized. In this paper, I use Basil Bernstein’s concepts of pedagogic discourse to document and analyse academic learning time of students in Years 8 and 9 at a suburban lower secondary school: in particular, for what proportion of class time students reported being academically engaged, their explanations for this engagement and how they felt about the discourse. It was found that many students had disengaged from mathematical endeavour as a result of the failure of the instructional discourse either to engage students or to serve the purpose of developing discipline-specific content knowledge. The reasons for this relate to the overemphasis on mundane mathematics resulting in some students lacking the cognitive tools to engage with the concepts and having neither the intrinsic nor instrumental motivation to persist with secondary school esoteric mathematics. The implications for mathematics curriculum development are discussed.
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View more >The importance of actively engaging in mathematics discourse in order to learn mathematics is well recognized. In this paper, I use Basil Bernstein’s concepts of pedagogic discourse to document and analyse academic learning time of students in Years 8 and 9 at a suburban lower secondary school: in particular, for what proportion of class time students reported being academically engaged, their explanations for this engagement and how they felt about the discourse. It was found that many students had disengaged from mathematical endeavour as a result of the failure of the instructional discourse either to engage students or to serve the purpose of developing discipline-specific content knowledge. The reasons for this relate to the overemphasis on mundane mathematics resulting in some students lacking the cognitive tools to engage with the concepts and having neither the intrinsic nor instrumental motivation to persist with secondary school esoteric mathematics. The implications for mathematics curriculum development are discussed.
View less >
Journal Title
Journal of Curriculum Studies
Note
This publication has been entered into Griffith Research Online as an Advanced Online Version.
Subject
Mathematics and Numeracy Curriculum and Pedagogy
Curriculum and Pedagogy