Conference presentation
Enabling academic numeracy through a problem solving approach
National Association of Enabling Educators of Australia (NAEEA) (Parramatta, New South Wales, 25/11/2015 - 26/11/2015)
26/11/2015
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Abstract
Academic numeracy is a multi-faceted construct recently re-defined by Galligan (2013) to be students’ competence, confidence and critical awareness of their own mathematical knowledge and the mathematics needed in their future context. Today the majority of enabling programs have at least one subject that aims to prepare students for the demands of academic numeracy in discipline-based university study. Yet most programs acknowledge that students are challenged by these courses. In conjunction with this students are often anxious, lack confidence in their ability to undertake mathematics and believe that maths is not useful or something that can be ‘figured out’.
In enabling mathematics one of the keys to success is the ability of students to be able ‘transfer’ learning from the enabling context to their new discipline contexts. This presentation explores the importance of ‘transfer’ in the development of mathematical preparation courses and proposes a curriculum framework that aims to build academic numeracy. The framework is based on open-ended problem solving activities and assessment underpinned by routine skill development. A description of the framework in action is presented and preliminary data on students’ success in mathematically oriented university courses are discussed.
Details
- Title
- Enabling academic numeracy through a problem solving approach
- Creators
- Janet Taylor (Author) - Southern Cross University, Office of the Vice ChancellorMichael Brickhill (Author) - Southern Cross University, SCU College
- Conference
- National Association of Enabling Educators of Australia (NAEEA) (Parramatta, New South Wales, 25/11/2015 - 26/11/2015)
- Identifiers
- 991013214212702368
- Academic Unit
- SCU College
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Conference presentation