[Maths-Education] CERME5- WG8

Thu Sep 14 12:10:55 BST 2006

Dear Candia hi!
How are you? I hope all is well with you, enjoying life in London.
I am thinking to submitt a paper for the CERME conference in Cyprus based on
some work we did with a colleague on a popular student journal for
mathematics. We have found the format template for the paper but we do not
know exactly how long should be the paper. Could you let us know about its
length? Is it 8 -10 pages?
We are also interesyted for proposing some practical activity using data
from this journal and we need more detalis abouyt that, too (e.g. how long
should that activity be, should it be realted to the paper, or separate
etc).
Looking forward to your reply.
best regards,
Anna. 

  _____  

From: maths-education-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
[mailto:maths-education-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Candia
Morgan
Sent: ???t?, 29 ?????st?? 2006 7:31 ??
To: Mathematics Education discussion forum
Subject: [Maths-Education] CERME5- WG8

The Fifth Conference of the European Society for Research in Mathematics
Education (CERME 5)
22nd b 26th February 2007

Working Group 8

Mathematics and Language

Call for papers

The importance of language and communication in learning and in the social
practices of classrooms has been recognised increasingly in recent years
both within the mathematics education community and more generally among
social scientists and educators. This recognition has had both theoretical
and practical aspects. On the one hand, researchers have been seeking to
develop theoretical frameworks for understanding the nature of mathematical
language and other specialised semiotic systems and processes of
communication in mathematics classrooms, the relationships between these and
doing and learning mathematics, and the role of beverydayb language in
mathematical activity. They have also sought to develop methodologies for
studying language-based practices in mathematics classrooms. The development
of theory and of empirical research in this area has been marked by the use
of a wide variety of theoretical and methodological resources adopted and
adapted from the disciplines of linguistics, semiotics, psychology and
sociology as well as those developed primarily within mathematics education
itself. 

At the same time, many curriculum reformers have been advocating the
development and use of activities for teaching and learning mathematics that
involve learners in generative language use such as discussing or
writing-to-learn or engaging in argumentation. Such curriculum innovations
have sometimes arisen from clearly stated principles or beliefs about the
effects they may have on learning but have also sometimes been adopted from
a less rigorously articulated belief in the benefits of bclassroom
discourseb.

A basic goal for research in this area is to develop our understanding of
which aspects of the various semiotic systems used in doing, learning and
teaching mathematics and which processes of language use and communication
are critical to the construction of specifically mathematical meanings and
how these are effective. This is needed to lead us to a better understanding
of the linguistic and communicative competences and means appropriate for
doing and learning mathematics. It should also provide us with well-founded
suggestions for the design of language-related practices to develop and
support mathematical thinking at various levels of education.

This Working Group aims to provide a critical forum for dialogue:
B& to develop better understanding of the various theoretical approaches,
what each has to offer and how they may complement or present alternatives
to each other;
B& to consider methodological approaches to the study of language and other
semiotic systems, their use, and communication within mathematics and
mathematics education;
B& to share the outcomes of empirical studies of language use and
communication within mathematical practices;
B& to consider implications for practice.

Our focus is on language and communication, interpreted in a broad sense to
include different forms of representation and channels of communication,
within the contexts of study of mathematics and mathematics education. Any
paper of relevance to the overall focus of the group will be considered,
though we will be particularly interested in theoretical, methodological,
empirical or developmental papers on themes such as: 
B& the nature of semiotic systems and processes in mathematics and their
interplay
B& the role of semiotic systems and processes in the development of
conceptualisation
B& multi-modal communication in mathematics
B& mathematics and/or mathematics education as discursive practices
B& the study of communication in mathematics classrooms
B& linguistic and/or communicative competence and mathematics learning
B& development of linguistic and/or communicative competences in mathematics
B& learning mathematics in multilingual settings (contributors on this theme
should consider before submitting their papers whether these will be better
suited to the work of this group or of Working Group 10 bMathematics
Education in Multicultural Settingsb)
B& teaching or curriculum strategies that promote use of language by
learners of mathematics.
In order for this field of research to develop greater maturity, analytic
tools need to be published in a form that is explicit enough to allow them
to be applied by others. This would enable researchers to build productively
on earlier work and to make meaningful evaluations and comparisons between
the results of studies undertaken by different researchers in different
contexts. We therefore particularly welcome papers that focus on the
development and application of analytic tools to address language-related
research questions.

Submitting papers
Papers for WG8 should be submitted electronically by the 10th October 2006,
to the Congress Secretary. The submission form and details of papersb
format and the reviewing process are given on the CERME5 web site
http://www.cyprusisland.com/cerme/ 

Organisation of the sessions during CERME 5
We will have 12 hours over four days in which to meet and progress our work
on issues related to research in mathematics and language. The working
program will be organised in order to discuss, in large or small groups,
common ideas, research programs, difficulties, doubts, the international
agenda and shared interests.
The participants in the WG8 at CERME4 recommended that some time during
CERME5 should be devoted to discussion of methodology and analytic tools,
possibly including some practical activity involving application of analytic
tools to examples of data. Suggestions for the format of such activity and
proposals of examples to be used should be sent to Candia Morgan
(c.morgan at ioe.ac.uk). Such suggestions may be related to a paper proposal or
may be independent.

Contact and questions
If you have further questions, please contact any of the leaders of the
group.
Candia Morgan c.morgan at ioe.ac.uk 
Pier Luigi Ferrari pferrari at unipmn.it
Gotz Krummheuer krummheuer at math.uni-frankfurt.de
Nadia Douek ndouek at wanadoo.fr

*************************************************************************
Dr Candia Morgan
Senior Lecturer in Mathematics Education
School of Mathematics Science and Technology
Institute of Education, University of London
20 Bedford Way
London WC1H 0AL
United Kingdom

tel. +44 (0)20 7612 6677 fax. +44 (0)20 7612 6792

c.morgan at ioe.ac.uk

http://www.ioe.ac.uk

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