Abstract
In November, 1986, Mrs Lorna Ireland; Principal of Junee Primary School in the Riverina Region of New South Wales; approached a Senior Lecturer in Mathematics Education at Riverina-Murray Institute of Higher Education in Wagga Wagga; seeking his involvement in a project aimed to assist teachers at the school with their mathematics teaching. In addition to the planned involvement in 1987 of this mathematics educator, the school was also to be a pilot school for the trialling of a strand of the New South Wales Education Department's Draft Mathematics Curriculum and a participating school in the numeracy component of the federal government's Basic Learning in Primary Schools program.This study documents the mathematics education activities which involved Junee Primary School teachers in 1987. It focuses on the RMIHE involvement in the school but considers this in the context of broader mathematics curriculum activity. The process of change is described within a theoretical framework derived from a review of relevant literature.
The research methodology employed is fundamentally ethnographic and relies on the collection of qualitative data to derive descriptions of people and events. The data analysis relates to curriculum change, the role of the change agent and the role of mathematics educators in school mathematics programs. A discussion of outcomes highlights the strengths of an approach to curriculum change which had its genesis in the school rather than in some external agency. The generation of problems and issues and the resolution of these are features of the analysis which tracks the progress towards professional development autonomy of one group of teachers.
| Date of Award | 1988 |
|---|---|
| Original language | English |
| Supervisor | Clem Annice (Supervisor) |
Cite this
- Standard