Vince Wright - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Vince Wright

In this article Vince Wright and Jacqui Tjorpatzis share findings from a teaching experiment that... more In this article Vince Wright and Jacqui Tjorpatzis share findings from a teaching experiment that involved the implementation of a Year 3 unit of work on decimals. They describe the activities involved, and the challenges and benefits of introducing decimals to young children.

Mathematics Education Research Group of Australasia, 2019

Scaffolding had roots in Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) within his wider socio-cul... more Scaffolding had roots in Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) within his wider socio-cultural theory. Bruner et al. introduced the term scaffolding to describe six actions that an expert other might take to support a learner to bridge their ZPD within an instructional setting. Scaffolding was viewed as a process that provided temporary support to an individual learner. Since Bruner’s initial work other researchers broadened the scaffolding metaphor to include, among other aspects, models of effective scaffolding, support offered by peers in collaborative situations, meta-cognitive self-scaffolding by the individual themselves, and support within technology mediated environments. Data from small-scale study of Pre-Service Teachers suggested that providing feedback that is responsive to the strategy of an individual student is an extremely challenging task. Mathematics Education, as a field, needs more specific examples of effective scaffolding, in whole class settings, that ...

Mathematics Education Research Group of Australasia, 2016

This study explored the potential of a rich assessment task to reveal students’ multiplicative th... more This study explored the potential of a rich assessment task to reveal students’ multiplicative thinking in respect to a hypothetical learning trajectory. Thirty pairs of students in grades 5 and 6 attempted the task. Twenty-two pairs applied multiplicative structure to find the number of items in arrays. However counting and computational errors resulted in a success rate of less than 50%. The rich task provided valuable data about students’ strategic choices and their need to develop computational fluency.

Australian primary mathematics classroom, 2013

Vince Wright makes a convincing argument for presenting children with a different 'prototype&... more Vince Wright makes a convincing argument for presenting children with a different 'prototype' of a fraction to the typical one-half. Consider how the prototype that Wright mentions may be applied to a variety of fraction concepts. We are sure that you will never look at a doughnut in quite the same way.

This paper reports the patterns of perfonnance of almost 10,000 Year 4 to 6 students whose teache... more This paper reports the patterns of perfonnance of almost 10,000 Year 4 to 6 students whose teachers participated in a project (ANP) designed to improve their professional knowledge, skills, and confidence. An important component of the project was the number framework, infonned by work with Count Me In Too, and extended to cater for students at Year 4 and beyond. Data collected at the beginning and end of the project provided validation for the upper levels of the framework. A hierarchical sequence of development was evident, with additive part-whole thinking acquired before multiplicative part-whole thinking, which came before proportional reasoning. Support was also found for the idea that knowledge about numbers provides a necessary foundation for strategies. It now seems to be generally accepted that national initiatives in mathematics education need to be based on sound research. In the UK, the Numeracy Taskforce claimed that its National Numeracy Strategy was research-based, a...

The importance of spatial reasoning to student success in mathematics and other STEM related fiel... more The importance of spatial reasoning to student success in mathematics and other STEM related fields is accepted (Okamoto, Kotsopoulos, McGarvey, & Hallowell, 2015; Sinclair & Bruce, 2015; Tosto et al., 2014). Given such significance some researchers lament the lack of focus on spatial reasoning globally, particularly in geometry curricula (Kell & Lubinski, 2013; Presmeg, 2008). Two other compelling reasons to promote spatial reasoning are the increased use of graphical representation to convey information across disciplinary fields (Lowrie, Diezmann, & Logan, 2012) and power of visual representations as tools for ‘amplifying cognition’ (Card & MacKinlay, 1999). One opportunity for students to exercise their spatial abilities is through working with nets, the 2-dimensional patterns that fold to form 3dimensional solids (Cohen, 2003). The following content descriptor from Year 5 of the Australian Curriculum (ACARA, n.d.) refers specifically to nets as a form of representation:

Talk moves simulations were used in tutorials for a mathematics education unit. Pre-service teach... more Talk moves simulations were used in tutorials for a mathematics education unit. Pre-service teachers (PSTs) and tutors were surveyed about their perceptions of the purposes, benefits, and drawbacks of the simulations. There was strong support from both groups for the benefits of talk moves in developing PSTs’ ability to manage discussions, ask good questions, and understand students’ thinking. Tutors were more inclined than PSTs to note improvements to PSTs’ mathematical knowledge. Challenges to implementation were authentic engagement in the simulations, PSTs’ lack of experience with children, the cognitive load associated with managing discussions, and limited mathematical knowledge.

Concept image is proposed by Vinner and Tall (1981) to differentiate the elements and relationshi... more Concept image is proposed by Vinner and Tall (1981) to differentiate the elements and relationships that a learner constructs about a concept from formal mathematical definition for the same concept. The answers of 119 University students to an examination question are analysed to establish the concept images they have for circle and ellipse. The results show the difficulty the students have in reasoning with properties at the higher levels of Van Hiele’s (2004) model of geometric thought.

Globalisation, Comparative Education and Policy Research

In this chapter it is argued that the maxim that association does not mean causality has largely ... more In this chapter it is argued that the maxim that association does not mean causality has largely been ignored in the setting of educational policy globally. Many reforms in education globally suggest a faith in the free market derived from neo-classical economic theory. It critiques PISA, as an instrument of the OECD, and suggests that it needs to provide better information to participant countries about the strengths and weaknesses of students in relation to the assessment frameworks, be more transparent about its methods, including the items used, and how measurement error is calculated, and broaden the assessment focus to include a broader range of competencies.

Mathematics Education Research Group of Australasia, 2014

Spatial visualisation is a subset of spatial ability and is exemplified in predicting whether or ... more Spatial visualisation is a subset of spatial ability and is exemplified in predicting whether or not a net will fold to form a target solid. The researchers examined video of interviews to explore the schemes of Year 5 students for determining the validity of nets for a cube and pyramid. Findings suggest the significance of imaged actions, shown through gesturing, and the importance of providing physical models during interviews as a means of validation.

Third International Handbook of Globalisation, Education and Policy Research

Educational Practice and Theory

Mathematics Education Research Journal

$Research paper thumbnail of In search of the prototypical fraction$