PME Working Group for Stochastics Teaching and Learning
<http://www.ugr.es/~batanero/pmegroup>
Letter No 11 - March 1998
Dear Friends,
This Newsletter contains 10 items.
1. List of Members on our Web Page-Call for Contributions
2. Research Papers on Stochastics Education from 1997
3. Working Group at PME 22, Stellenbosch, near Cape Town
4. Present Planning for the Proposed Book
5. ICOTS Conference 1998 (Singapore)
6. Call for Proposals for a Book on Advanced Mathematical Thinking
7. Proposed New Section in the Study group Newsletter and Data Base
8. Miscellaneous Items of Interest
9. Revision of Mailing List
10. Next Newsletter
1. List of Members on our Web Page-Call for Contributions
Our Web Page is now up and running. The address is at the top of this
Newsletter.
We want to have a list of our members on the Page. If you are happy for
your name to be included please send details of
Name
Institution
e-mail address
URL of personal web page
and a brief (50 - 60 words) description of your interests
to
Juan Godino -- <jgodino@goliat.ugr.es>.
There are some examples already on the web site.
2. Research Papers on Stochastics Education from 1997
The collection of papers made by Joan Garfield and John Truran in order to
make these papers more widely accessible has now been prepared. It provides
a useful overview of much of the work being done in this field at this
time, and would be a useful starting point for new researchers as well as
for more experienced researchers who like to keep up with what is going on
but cannot attend all the conferences or purchase all the proceedings. The
collection contains most of the stochastics research papers from the 1997
meetings of
American Educational Research Association (AERA) - 2 papers
Psychology of Mathematics Education (PME) - 7 papers
Mathematics Educational Research group of Australasia (MERGA) - 12 papers
Psychology of Mathematics Education - North America (PME-NA) - 2 papers
The booklet has more than 250 pages, is spiral bound and hard plastic
covered. So it is suitable for being ordered for libraries. One paper is in
Spanish, the remainder are in English. It is being sold at cost. The price
is USD12 within the USA and Canada and USD20 elsewhere, including printing
and air mail postage. It is obtainable by sending a cheque/money order (not
credit card number) to
Dr Joan Garfield
Department of Educational Psychology
University of Minnesota
332 Burton Hall
178 Pilsbury Drive SE
Minneapolis MN55455
USA
3. Working Group at PME 22, Stellenbosch, near Cape Town
This conference will be held from 12-17 July 97 at a small university town
in the wine growing region of Southern South Africa about 50 km from Cape
Town. The theme is "Diversity and Change in Mathematics Education". Details
may be found at <http://www.sun.ac.za/pme22>
The Working Group will meet three or four times during the Conference. At
this point the members of this working group who will be attending are
Claude Gaulin, David Reid (Canada) Avigail Hartman (Israel) John and Kath
Truran (Australia), Juan Godino and Carmen Batanero (Spain). Michael
Glencross from the University of Transkei, South Africa, who is a
vice-president of the International Association for Statistical Education,
will be present, and we anticipate the attendance of some other South
Africans as well.
If you plan to attend, please let us know.
An important part of the Conference will be a Research Forum on the subject
"Learning and Teaching Data Handling" co-ordinated by Paul Laridon,
University of Witwatersrand, Johannesberg. This will have two presentations:
"Graphing as a Computer-mediated Tool"
Janet Ainley, Elena Nardi, Dave Pratt from the University of Warwick, UK
"Building the Meaning of Statistical Association through Data Analysis
Activities"
Carmen Batanero, Juan Godino from the University of Granada, Spain, and
Antonio Estepa from the University of Jaen, Spain
There will also be two reactors to these presentations, whose names have
not yet been announced, and substantial time for discussion. This should
provide a real opportunity for us to think through some of the big ideas
with which we are concerned.
The following papers in stochastics have been submitted for refereeing:
Pre-service teachers' conceptions of probability in relation to its history.
Some misconceptions underlying first-year students' under-standing of
'average rate' and of 'average value'.
The co-ordination of meanings for randomness.
Using research into a complex stochastic situation to some curriculum
requirements.
Using research into children's understanding of symmetry of dice in order
to develop a model of how they perceive the concept of a random generator.
There will be four main items on the agenda for our meetings.
a. Reports and Items of News
Report of ICOTS Meeting
Details of Future Conferences
b. Providing opportunities for members to talk about their work in an
informal way. If you would like to make a brief presentation (10 - 15
minutes), please let John know and he will provide space in the timetable.
It would help if you could bring 2 - 3 overheads to illustrate you work,
and possibly a brief handout, for about 25 people. If English is not your
first language, we will do our best to provide translation facilities.
c. Studying the possibility of developing a book on statistical
education, which presents the state of arts of research and pedagogical
implications. As this is a huge project, an invitation to participate will
be made to the members of the International Study Group for Research on
Learning Probability and Statistics during the meeting of this group in
Singapore. This book is being co-ordinated by Kath Truran, John Truran and
Carmen Batanero, with Kath as the main responsible. As with other books, it
has taken time to determine the focus of the work. A detailed call for
proposals will be done soon after the PME conference, if there is
sufficient consensus about the Project. The report in Paragraph 4 indicates
where our thinking is up to so far.
d. Proposal for developing a specific PME Section in the Newsletter of
the International Study Group for Research on Learning Probability and
Statistics, which will be the base for an electronic Data Base of annotated
bibliographies. This is reported on in Para 7. If the plan is agreed to be
workable, then we shall encourage PME members to take part.
4. Present Planning for the Proposed Book.
TEACHING AND LEARNING PROBABILITY AND STATISTICS: IMPLICATIONS FROM RESEARCH
This planned publication aims to produce a hand-book on statistical
education from a research perspective in collaboration between the PME
Stochastics Working Group and the International Study Group for Research on
Learning Probability and Statistics.
The book will be a scholarly, critical assessment of current literature
directed specifically to summarising the main psycho-logical and
educational research in the area and linking research findings with
classroom implications in a way that increases signific-antly the body of
pedagogical knowledge. A second aim is to provide new researchers with a
starting point to research literature in statistical education and with a
reasonable research agenda.
Intended audiences are new and current researchers in statistical education
in different areas such as Mathematics Education, Psychology and Education.
It would also be directed to statisticians interested in the problems of
statistical education, as well as to university lecturers and teacher
educators. The publication could also be useful to secondary and primary
teachers of statistics in English speaking countries. It will be
attractively presented in a style accessible not only to researchers in the
field, but to the wider community of statistical educators.
Collaboration between researchers in different countries and different
research fields will be encouraged, with the editorial panel being
responsible for organising the refereeing process with the help of authors
and some external experts. Finding a suitable publisher is presently being
investigat.
The co-ordination will be the responsibility of the current PME Working
group leaders Kath Truran, John Truran and Carmen Batanero (in
representation of the International Study Group), who invite those of you
who are interested to attend either PME meeting or the Study Group meeting
in Singapore, where Kath and John will present a summary of the project.
If you can neither attend Singapore nor Stellenbosch meetings and are
interested in this project, you can get more information from Kath Truran
<kathleen.truran@unisa.edu.au>. More complete information on this project
will be included in the next Newsletter.
5. ICOTS Conference 1998 (Singapore)
A number of members of our group will be present at the International
Conference on the Teaching of Statistics (ICOTS6) from 21 - 26 June, and we
hope to have some discussions during what looks like a very interesting
programme. We are arranging to have a room available for these meetings.
At this Conference there will also be a meeting of the International Study
Group for Research on Learning Probability and Statistics, which Joan
Garfield and Carmen Batanero will co-ordinate. During the meeting the
projects for producing the book and the PME section within the Study Group
Newsletter will be presented. Invitations to members of the Study Group to
participate in these projects will be made.
6. Call for Proposals for a Book on Advanced Mathematical (including
Stochastics) Thinking
The Advanced Mathematical Thinking Working Group at PME is planning a book
directed at post-secondary level teachers of mathematics, who are
mathematically sophisticated, but unacquainted with research in the
psychology of mathematics education, and containing many connections with
classroom practice. It is intended to include at least one chapter on the
teaching of stochastics in the book.
Three themes have been selected as unifying threads to connect the sections
of the book: The role of technology, Teaching the nature of mathematics
(e.g. proof), Teaching a mathematical attitude (appreciation for elegance,
etc.). The book will conclude with a section connecting the ideas presented
in the book to these three themes. This material will be prepared by the
Editorial Board or by authors invited by the Board.
Criteria for submissions:
1. Submissions must include descriptions of successful teaching at the
undergraduate level, suitable to give readers a clear idea of what is being
suggested. Analysis of unsuccessful teaching could also be included, with
research based suggestions for improvements.
2. Submissions should be related to one of three themes: Development of a
mathematical attitude; the Nature of Mathematics; The role of technology.
Submissions which do not relate to these themes will be considered, but it
is expected that most of the submissions chosen will relate to one of these
themes.
3. Submissions should relate the teaching described to research in
mathematics education, including psychology, epistemology, and
socio-mathematical aspects. While this theoretical perspective is important
it should not overshadow the description of teaching experience. The
teaching experience must be the main message of the chapter; at the same
time it must either follow from a theoretical perspective or be interpreted
within a theoretical framework (or both).
You are invited to submit a text of between 5 and 15 pages (1000 to 4000
words). The text may be close to a full draft of a chapter, or it may be an
extended abstract. In either case enough detail should be included to allow
the Editorial Board and members of AMT to judge the significance of the
text as a contribution to the book.
Deadline for submission of abstracts/drafts: May 1. Final drafts should be
submitted soon after PME. and will be submitted to an external review.
Further details: David Reid <dareid@pop.morgan.ucs.mun.ca>
7. Proposed New Section in the Study Group Newsletter and Data Base
The idea of producing a data base of critical reviews of stochastics
literature was discussed at the 1997 PME, and it was felt that we needed to
think more deeply before putting up a proposal. We now have a proposal
which we think is capable of being tried if sufficient people are willing
to offer a small amount of time. We also decided that the project is such a
wide one that it would be better carried out with the help of the
International Study Group, which count with about 230 members interested in
research.
Therefore, an invitation to participate in the project to this group will
be made during the Study Group meeting at Singapore. During the first year,
we will use the Newsletter of the International Study Group as a mean of
communication and distribution of the work produced. In the first stage the
project essentially consists of calling for volunteers to making reviews
and sending them to John Truran, who will be the responsible of organising
a refereeing process and editing a section on "Critical summaries of
stochastics literature", to be published into the Newsletter of the
International Study Group.
We feel that this new section will also contribute to the improvement of
the Study Group Newsletter and can be the starting point to develop a data
base. At the same time duplication of effort of time will be avoided, as
the International Study Group Newsletter is already distributing
bibliographical summaries. During the first year, we can use either the
Stochastics working group PME web site or the International Study group web
site (or both) to store the PME section of the Newsletter, while we
experiment with the best format.
8. Miscellaneous Items of Interest
(a) In 1999 PME will be held in Israel in mid-July (probably 11 - 17).
We have asked Dani Ben-Zvi from the Weizmann Institute to be one of our
co-ordinators for this meeting and are pleased that he has been able to
accept. There are so many stochastics researchers in Israel that
stochastics learning should feature high on the programme, and Dani has the
skills and local know-ledge to ensure that we can all make the most of this
opportunity.
(b) In 2000, ICME will be held near Tokyo from 31 Jul to 7 Aug. A PME
Conference will be held in Hiroshima, to finish two days before ICME
starts. Plans are being developed for a Round Table on Statistics Education
after ICME, probably also in Japan.
(c) There has been some expression of interest by some of the South
Africans to hold the ICOTS7 in South Africa in 2002.
9. Revision of Mailing List
Interests and commitments change. If you no longer wish to receive this
mailing list, please feel free to let us know. And if you know someone who
would like to be included, then please also let us know.
10. Next Newsletter
This is planned for early May. Please send material for inclusion by 1 May 98.
John Truran <jtruran@arts.adelaide.edu.au>
Kath Truran <Kath.Truran@unisa.edu.au>
Carmen Batanero <batanero@goliat.ugr.es>
Web page <http://www.ugr.es/~batanero/pmegroup>