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2020
The purpose of this chapter is to develop an inclusive and coherent discussion about research developments within numeracy while, at the same time, highlighting the contributions of its different facets. These facets include two broad contexts in which numeracy development and practices take place, schooling/initial teacher education and the workplace, and two centred on specific areas of mathematical content, statistical and financial literacy. Research in this review is analysed through the dimensions of the Model of Numeracy for the 21st Century—contexts, mathematical knowledge, tools, dispositions and critical orientation. The chapter concludes with a discussion of potential new directions for numeracy research.
2019
In this article, terms and the state of research on adult numeracy are compiled in a systematic way. The findings and theories are selected according to their relation to the German-language discourse of adult education and at the same time embedded in a historical context as well as in international discourse. Many recent findings confirm Jean Lave’s approach in that numeracy differs from school mathematics in the high relevance of rules of thumb and estimates as well as in less formal procedures. Numeracy is therefore often not understood as mathematics and remains rather invisible. Numeracy practices are based on social power relations. The assertion of one’s own interests is also based on numeracy—for example in financial literacy, in the health system or in the use of statistical data. Last but not least, numeracy skills and practices go hand in hand with better living conditions.
2004
If we take as our starting point the quite reasonable proposition that numeracy is "having the competence and disposition to use mathematics to meet the general demands of life at home, in paid work, and for participation in community and civic life" (Willis 1992) then what 'being numerate' means becomes quite problematic. Even a cursory glance at work, tertiary, training and school curricula demonstrate the significant mathematical demands that are made on workers and students in order that they do their 'work' well. Numeracy certainly means more than having competence with a set of basic mathematical skills. This has serious implications for all teachers who are preparing young people for life, learning and the workplace. In this paper we propose a Numeracy Framework as a way of describing numeracy, diagnosing learning issues, supporting teacher planning and for teaching to students and workers so that they can choose to learn how to act numerately. While this framework has been developed in consultation with teachers in primary and secondary schools in Australia it builds on work previously done in work, training and school sites on Key Competencies particularly 'Using mathematical ideas and techniques in practical settings'. Requiring teachers across the curriculum to take numeracy seriously cannot in the end make demands on them that are unrealistic, too complex, too time consuming, and take them so far away from their core work as to compromise both their area and numeracy. Some practical ways of adopting this framework for use by teachers are briefly outlined. Numeracy -more than being able to do some basic computations It seems that numeracy is finally being taken seriously by education and training sectors and systems around the world. However there still does not seem to be a shared understanding of what numeracy 'is'. People perceive and describe numeracy in many different ways. A wide variety of terms is used almost interchangeably with numeracy.
Numeracy
In this article, we confront the challenges to teacher education students and practicing teachers raised by the concept of numeracy and its place in the curriculum. In the Australian Curriculum, there is an expectation that teachers at all grade levels and in all subject areas develop students' numeracy capabilities. At Monash University, a public, research-intensive university, the largest university in Australia, graduate level teacher education students are now required to complete a course entitled Numeracy for Learners and Teachers. We describe the content of this course and, from an online survey, report findings of the impact on students' understandings of the relationship between numeracy and mathematics, their confidence and numeracy performance, and their readiness to incorporate numeracy in their teaching. Using a similar online survey, we also examine practicing teachers' confidence about their numeracy proficiency, their views on how numeracy and mathematics are related, and provide a snapshot of the teachers' actual numeracy capabilities. We discuss the implications of our findings.
2015
Numeracy refers to the use of mathematics in non-mathematical contexts. In this paper two approaches to conceptualising numeracy across the whole school curriculum are identified: one based on interdisciplinary inquiry and the other on embedding numeracy into each school subject. The latter approach informed a systematic audit of resources available to Australian teachers for understanding and enacting numeracy across the curriculum. It was found that few resources addressed the need for teachers to recognise and take advantage of the numeracy learning demands and opportunities within the subjects they teach.
National Center For the Study of Adult Learning and Literacy, 2006
Educational Action Research, 1996
This article describes an investigation of how language is used in learning mathematics. An English teacher and a mathematics teacher videotaped a group of students working through a mathematics problem. The focus of the research was to consider students' use of language (in both oral and written forms) to express their mathematical understanding. The research highlighted the significant part language plays in learning.
Brock Education Journal
This essay describes the development of the word numeracy as it evolved from its initial use in 1959 to its current meaning today. Initially appearing in a British report to address mathematics education of teenage boys and girls, it was first used in relation to the word literate and defined as the ability with or knowledge of numbers. By the mid-1960s, the meaning shifted from computation of numbers to the ability to interpret data and make sense of the world through business, science, and technology. In the 1970s, numeracy was seen as a skill that was essential in life and by the turn of the twenty-first century, numeracy came to include the ability to reason. Numeracy was no longer seen simply in the area of mathematics but continued to permeate through all areas of study and furthermore, into daily life.
2009
Academic numeracy is a critical awareness that allows students to become confident and competent in using mathematics and to be able to situate, interpret, critique, use, communicate and even create mathematics within their discipline’s setting. Academic numeracy is usually based on both the mathematics learnt at school and the mathematics needed in disciplines such as nursing or economics. Many students at both school and university are opting to study easier types of mathematics; universities are removing mathematical pre-requisites from award programs and not recognising the embedded mathematics within many of their courses. These trends ensure that initiatives which allow students to bridge the mathematical gaps to university are still necessary. Yet while research into mathematics at university does exist, it is still in it infancy. There are many questions not fully answered and as universities move into the culture of quality and performance matched funding, it is essential t...
The Australian mathematics teacher, 2012
Vol, 2007
This paper reports the case of two teachers with respect to the positioning of numeracy in a reform curriculum and subsequent student learning across five dimensions of numeracy. By analysing the conversations of these two teachers, their underlying beliefs about numeracy and its value and role in the curriculum were able to be explored. These beliefs were further reflected in the learning outcomes of the six students in this study. The paper describes examples of how the five dimensions of numeracy were evident in the thinking and practice of both the teachers and their students.
2012
This paper reports on a research and development project that helped teachers to plan and implement numeracy strategies across the school curriculum. It presents a rich model of numeracy whose elements comprise mathematical knowledge, dispositions, tools, contexts, and a critical orientation to the use of mathematics. This model is then applied to analyse changes in one teacher's planning, classroom practice, and personal conceptions of numeracy. Numeracy; teacher development; curriculum development.
Adelaide: Australian Association of Mathematics …, 2000
Executive Summary A capacity for numerate behaviour is important for all school students for ongoing education, employment, private and civic adult lives. Numeracy is having the disposition and critical ability to choose and use appropriate mathematical knowledge ...
2018
Current narrow definitions of numeracy and mathematics within the functional mathematics agenda, conceptualised as the autonomous model (Street 1984,1995; Street, Baker and Tomlin 2008) of numeracy, offer students entering further education limited and deficit subject positions and may contribute to a continued lack of success in college mathematics and numeracy.
Encyclopedia of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, 2020
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