set 2006: no. 3

This year we have provided you with a wide range of evidence-based topics, across sectors and across many of the key areas that are of concern and relevance to educators. We like to think that, at times, we have surprised you, challenged you, and affirmed you in your practice. The “thinking pieces” in He Whakaaro Anō have been thought-provoking and asked searching questions: “Who should decide curriculum?”; “What’s wrong with school improvement?”; and, in this issue, “Does numeracy =… Read more

By examining the notion of student participation in learning as a key element of achieving positive outcomes for learning and the environment, this article looks at the power relationship between teacher and learner. It also describes practical ways for developing a facilitative teacher style to support greater student participation in learning.

This article reports on the analysis of a videotape of four children participating in a group mathematical task. The authors discuss the ways that the context, social organisation, and resources of the task shaped the children's approach to the task, and the implications of this for teachers.

What might a "fun" and "interesting" curriculum entail from the pupils' point of view? The author draws on findings from a review of the research undertaken in the UK on pupils' perspectives and experiences of the curriculum. The article explores some of the findings in relation to pupils' views on relevance and enjoyment in the curriculum across the key stages, and highlights where greater emphasis might be needed in the curriculum according to the views of learners.

Literature provides a strong case for the importance of teachers caring about their students' mathematics achievement, and provides a wide range of ways teachers can show such care to their students. This article describes New Zealand students' and teachers' views on the importance of teachers caring about mathematics progress and identifies key features found in three Year 10 multicultural mathematics classrooms where teachers show such caring.

In recent years, a number of countries including New Zealand have initiated numeracy projects to enhance the learning and teaching of mathematics. These initiatives are to be applauded as they provide mathematics education with a focus for the professional development of teachers that has political and community support, and there is no doubt that with little time available for mathematics education in preservice teacher education, such development opportunities are desirable.

Critical literacy is a critical thinking tool that encourages readers to question the construction and production of texts. This article discusses the findings from a collaborative research project that examined the use of critical literacy strategies in guided reading. Specifically, the authors discuss the strategies of: direct teaching of metalanguage; questioning; text selection; and (re)structuring of guided-reading lessons.

In recent years, the cries for teachers to have high expectations for all their students have been heard far and wide—yet, research in the expectancy area carried out at the whole class level has been sparse. This article reports findings from a study aimed to address this gap in the literature. Teachers who had high or low expectations for all students in their classes were identified. Student achievement in reading, and their self-perceptions, were tracked for one year.

The implication that teachers with high expectations will improve student achievement has an appealing logic. However, whether or not the instructional practices and beliefs of teachers having high expectations would differ from those whose expectations were low has not previously been explored. High and low expectation teachers identified in a previous study were interviewed and observed teaching reading. Their beliefs and instructional approaches were found to differ substantially—high… Read more

This article describes how a teacher in a high school classroom facilitated her students' acquisition and use of the specialist language of mathematics. Using ideas from second language acquisition, the teacher's strategies for language development are grouped into four stages. This paper suggests that for students to become fluent producers and interpreters of the mathematics register there must be opportunities for them to use the language at all four stages.