Keywords
numeracy teachers, teacher education, numeracy education, numeracy vs. mathematics, Australian Curriculum, Monash University
Abstract
In this article, we confront the challenges to teacher education students and practicing teachers raised by the concept of numeracy and its place in the curriculum. In the Australian Curriculum, there is an expectation that teachers at all grade levels and in all subject areas develop students' numeracy capabilities. At Monash University, a public, research-intensive university, the largest university in Australia, graduate level teacher education students are now required to complete a course entitled Numeracy for Learners and Teachers. We describe the content of this course and, from an online survey, report findings of the impact on students' understandings of the relationship between numeracy and mathematics, their confidence and numeracy performance, and their readiness to incorporate numeracy in their teaching. Using a similar online survey, we also examine practicing teachers’ confidence about their numeracy proficiency, their views on how numeracy and mathematics are related, and provide a snapshot of the teachers' actual numeracy capabilities. We discuss the implications of our findings.
DOI
http://doi.org/10.5038/1936-4660.10.2.2
Recommended Citation
Forgasz, Helen J., Gilah Leder, and Jennifer Hall. "Numeracy Across the Curriculum in Australian Schools: Teacher Education Students’ and Practicing Teachers’ Views and Understandings of Numeracy." Numeracy 10, Iss. 2 (2017): Article 2. DOI: http://doi.org/10.5038/1936-4660.10.2.2
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License
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