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Inducting Year 6 Students into “A Culture of Mathematising as a Practice”

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Teaching Mathematical Modelling: Connecting to Research and Practice

Abstract

This chapter describes a classroom teaching experiment conducted in three Year 6 classes where the purpose was to induct students into the mathematising of real world tasks. The focus is on whether applications and mathematical modelling are viewed as being outside of mathematics, as an add-on, or as an integral part of mathematics, requiring students and teachers to operate in a “culture of mathematising as a practice” (Bauersfeld 1993 cited in Yackel and Cobb J Res Math Educ 27(4):459, 1996). Two tasks were used. In one task student mathematising was quite superficial. The second task, introduced with an explicit focus on modelling, resulted in more in-depth mathematising but students still stalled in the modelling process.

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Acknowledgements 

Thanks to Ann Downton (ACU) and Michael Di Nuzzo (CEOM) for data collection support and to the teacher and student participants without whom this research could not have been undertaken.

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Correspondence to Jill P. Brown .

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© 2013 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

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Brown, J.P. (2013). Inducting Year 6 Students into “A Culture of Mathematising as a Practice”. In: Stillman, G., Kaiser, G., Blum, W., Brown, J. (eds) Teaching Mathematical Modelling: Connecting to Research and Practice. International Perspectives on the Teaching and Learning of Mathematical Modelling. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6540-5_24

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