PME Project Group for Stochastics Teaching and Learning
<http://www.ugr.es/~batanero/pmegroup>
Letter No 18 - Jan 1999
Dear Friends,
New Year’s Greetings to all our members. We have some slow, but good progress to report.
1. Change of Name
2. “Teaching and Learning Statistics: Implications for Research”
3. PME 23rd Conference, Israel, 25–30 July 1999.
4. Tentative Programme for Project Group Meetings at PME23
5. Cooperation with Advanced Mathematical Thinking Group
6. Special Edition of “Educational Studies in Mathematics” on Data Handling
7. Bibliographies
8. Critical Reviews on “International Study Group Newsletter”
9. The Future of This Group
10. Two Thoughts from ICOTS 5
11. PME Project Group Announcement
12. Next Newsletter
1. Change of Name
We are now called a “Project Group”, rather than a “Working Group” to emphasise that we need to have a purpose more than general discussion.
2. “Teaching and Learning Statistics: Implications for Research”
We have copies of four completed abstracts. All will be useful chapters and fit the requirements. With the introductory and final chapters this makes 6 definite starters. Chapters are: Computer assisted learning, Making sense of Statistical Graphs, Assessment, Association
Four more abstracts have been offered, final versions have not yet been received from these people. These are currently being followed up, and if all materialise then we are well on the
way to a well-balanced book.
Taking into account abstracts we hope to get, the gaps which have not yet filled seem to be:
Collection and organistion of data
Model fitting
Sampling/Estimation
Hypothesis testing
We do have one publisher who is seriously interested, and it is our intention to put a proposal forward early in February. So if any readers still wish to be involved, please contact <Kath.Truran@unisa.edu.au> during January.
3. PME 23rd Conference, Israel, 25–30 July 1999.
Full details of this conference are available at
<http://members.tripod.com/~IGPME/pme23/index.html>.
Note that the list of hotels is longer than that on the printed version which members received, with the extra hotels being in the middle price-range.
It seems that if you want to listen to the attached audio-piece (Israeli music), you probably need Netscape 4 on a PC with the Windows 95 application of “mplayer.exe”.
The latest edition of “PME News” contains a number of suggestions about good ways of presenting papers, and good ways of organising Project Groups. We think we conform with the advice pretty well, but would be pleased to hear any divergent opinions.
4. Tentative Programme for Project Group Meetings at PME23
First Session
General Introductions
Reports
SRTL (Statistical Reasoning, Thinking & Literacy) Pre-Research Forum
Educational Studies in Mathematics Special Edition
Book on the Teaching of Statistics
International Study Group Newsletter
Short Presentations
If members want to make a short (10 minute) presentation to one of our two 90-minute meetings, then could they please send a half-page summary to <jtruran@arts.adelaide.edu.au> by 15 June 1999.
Future Activities
Round Table, Japan, 2000
ICME, Tokyo, August 2000
ISI Meeting, Korea, co-ordinated by Lionel Pereira-Mendoza, 2001
ICOTS 6, Durban 2002
Second Session
Work on Book
5. Cooperation with Advanced Mathematical Thinking Group
The authors of both the papers submitted by members of the Stochastic Group to the proposed book on Advanced Mathematical Thinking have been asked to prepare full chapters for review.
6. Special Edition of “Educational Studies in Mathematics” on Data Handling
Following from the Research Forum at Stellenbosch, Janet Ainley & Dave Pratt are co-ordinating a special PME edition of “Educational Studies in Mathematics” which will include extended versions of all the contributions to the Forum, and a number of other articles as well. This will be a useful opportunity to emphasis the increasing importance of Stochastics education research within mathematics education.
7. Bibliographies
During 1999 the International Study Group Newsletter will be publishing two bibliographies of research:
Preparing Teachers to teach Stochastics
Understanding of Averages
Any members who have useful lists on this topics are asked to contact <jtruran@arts.adelaide.edu.au>. You help would be much appreciated.
8. Critical Reviews on “International Study Group Newsletter”
Following up our discussions at PME Conferences, we have started a section on Critical Reviews of the Stochastics Literature in the International Study Group Newsletter (<http://www.ugr.es/~batanero/v12en99.htm>). This will operate as a trial for 12 months.
9. The Future of This Group
Members will realise that life in universities is becoming more pressured, and funds are becoming shorter. It is clear from conversations with one or two people that they will find regular travel to conferences in the future rather difficult. And in any case, people move on to other responsibilities, and something has to be let go. It is likely that the leadership of this Group will need to change from 2000.
Furthermore, the heavy Conference load in 2000 raises some special problems. This creates some problems. Because Carmen is co-ordinating the IASE Round Table this will take all her time. As well, all of these conferences have been timetabled to fit the northern hemisphere summer, and are being held during Australian term time. This creates further problems for Kath & John.
The special value of PME is that it puts emphasis on Psychology, Mathematics and Education. This is a very important partnership which we need to promote as much as possible, and which we should not let go of.
We are doing what we can to widen the scope of this group, and to involve as many people as possible, but it is not easy to achieve. We would emphasise that we do welcome feedback from members, positive or negative. Are there any members of the group who would like to be more closely involved from 2000?
10. Two Thoughts from ICOTS 5
It is worth repeating Maria Gabriella Ottoviani’s summary of two key issues which emerged from ICOTS5:
The demand for recognition in the academic world that research in statistics education is a research discipline in its own right;
The problem in statistics training of those researchers and professionals who must then apply statistics to diverse sunstantive disciplines.
11. PME Project Group Announcement
The following is the announcement which will appear in the PME23 Proceedings.
PROJECT GROUP ON THE TEACHING AND LEARNING OF STOCHASTICS
This Project Group exists as a focus for members interested in the psychology of the teaching and learning of probability, statistics and combinatorics. It maintains an informal network between conferences by means of an electronically distributed newsletter. It particularly seeks to bring together interested people from all language groups, and does its best to provide translation facilities as appropriate.
Part of our Project Group meetings in the PME 23 Conference will also be devoted to ensuring that all of us have an opportunity to talk informally about our work. People who wish to be involved in this Project Group are invited to make a 10 minute presentation on their interests. This might be supported by two or three overhead transparencies and perhaps some handouts of work which they think will be of interest for others. Work being done jointly with the International Study Group for the Teaching and Learning of Probability and Statistics will also be discussed.
Work is continuing on the preparation of a book on Teaching Statistics which has its basis in psychological and educational research. The basic outlines of this work were decided at our meeting in 1998. Some material is also being prepared for a book on Advanced Mathematical Thinking. In 1999 some material will be available for group comment.
John Truran, University of Adelaide, South Australia
Kathleen Truran, University of South Australia
Dani Ben-Zvi, Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel
Carmen Batanero, University of Granada, Spain
12. Next Newsletter
This will be sent out near the end of March. Any contby 15 Mar 1999, please.
John Truran <jtruran@arts.adelaide.edu.au>
Kath Truran <Kath.Truran@unisa.edu.au>
Dani Ben-Zvi <ntdben@wiccmail.weizmann.ac.il>
Carmen Batanero <batanero@goliat.ugr.es>
Web Page <http://www.ugr.es/local/batanero/–pmegroup.htm>