Rodney Nason

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors evaluated first-year teacher education students' understanding of subject matter knowledge in the domain of area measurement, focusing on the student teachers' substantive knowledge but also on their knowledge about the nature and discourse of mathematics, knowledge about mathematics in society and their dispositions towards mathematics.

Abstract: This article reports on a study that investigated the causes underlying a sample of eighteen third-year Australian pre-service primary teachers’ negative beliefs and anxiety about mathematics. It was found that most of the participants’ maths-anxiety could be attributed to their primary school experiences in learning mathematics. Situations such as teaching mathematics or being evaluated in mathematics were noted as particularly stressful and mathematical topics such as algebra, space and number sense were specifically identified to cause mathsanxiety. The paper concludes with a brief discussion about the implications of these findings for an ensuing program whose purpose is to help these pre-service teachers address their negative beliefs and anxieties about mathematics.

TL;DR: This chapter discusses why computer supported collaborative learning (CSCL) environments have been unsuccessful in facilitating knowledge building in mathematics and identifies two of the major reasons why this is so and suggests these issues could be overcome by the inclusion of modeleliciting mathematical problems and comprehension modeling tools within CSCL environments.

TL;DR: This paper reports on the design of a prototype VRLE (Virtual Reality Learning Environment) named VRMath, an online application that utilises VR technology combined with the power of a Logo-like programming language and hypermedia and the Internet to facilitate the learning of 3-Dimensional geometry concepts and processes.

TL;DR: A study where 21 grade six female students engaged in model-eliciting problem-solving with collective discourse mediated by Knowledge Forum® Computer Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) software achieved the kind of progressive knowledge-building activity that until now had not been achieved in CSCL-mediated mathematics communities.