title: Developing statistical literacy with students and teachers in the secondary mathematics classroom

authors: Doyle, Philip Gerard

subjects: statistics education

abstract: This thesis investigates the teaching of statistical literacy in the first two years of secondary school mathematics.  The teachers involved in the research aim to make changes to classroom practice in the teaching and learning of statistics and statistical literacy in response to changes in the New Zealand curriculum.

An action research methodology is adopted by the research.  A group of three teachers and the author undertake an action research cycle of planning, observing, acting and reflecting in three different Year 9 and 10 mathematics classrooms.  The research documents the designing and implementing of strategies by a group of teachers in a mathematics department for integrating statistical literacy into teaching programmes.  The research adopts framework for improving practice that utilise models for statistical literacy and thinking and principles for teaching with a language learning or literacy focus.  

Data is collected through discussions with teachers, observations of lessons and interviews with teachers and students.  Themes emerge from the data.  They include the significance of teacher and student concepts of statistics and statistical literacy, the importance of language and literacy in the statistics classroom, the adoption of teaching principles to facilitate statistical literacy and the challenge of adopting a critical literacy stance in the statistics classroom.

The study highlights the importance of literacy and language skills in statistical literacy.  The research concludes that the important changes needed for developing statistical literacy are about classroom methodology rather than content knowledge and shows that adoption of language learning principles into the teaching programme may achieve this.

text: Developing statistical literacy with students and teachers in the secondary mathematics classroom This thesis investigates the teaching of statistical literacy in the first two years of secondary school mathematics.  The teachers involved in the research aim to make changes to classroom practice in the teaching and learning of statistics and statistical literacy in response to changes in the New Zealand curriculum.

An action research methodology is adopted by the research.  A group of three teachers and the author undertake an action research cycle of planning, observing, acting and reflecting in three different Year 9 and 10 mathematics classrooms.  The research documents the designing and implementing of strategies by a group of teachers in a mathematics department for integrating statistical literacy into teaching programmes.  The research adopts framework for improving practice that utilise models for statistical literacy and thinking and principles for teaching with a language learning or literacy focus.  

Data is collected through discussions with teachers, observations of lessons and interviews with teachers and students.  Themes emerge from the data.  They include the significance of teacher and student concepts of statistics and statistical literacy, the importance of language and literacy in the statistics classroom, the adoption of teaching principles to facilitate statistical literacy and the challenge of adopting a critical literacy stance in the statistics classroom.

The study highlights the importance of literacy and language skills in statistical literacy.  The research concludes that the important changes needed for developing statistical literacy are about classroom methodology rather than content knowledge and shows that adoption of language learning principles into the teaching programme may achieve this.

year: 2008

title: The response of a floating ice sheet to an accelerating line load

authors: Miles, J.

abstract: The two-dimensional response of a thin, floating sheet of ice to a line load that accelerates from rest at $t = 0$ to a uniform velocity V for $t \geq T$ is determined through an integral-transform solution of the linearized equations of motion. If $T = 0$ – i.e. if the load is impulsively started with velocity V – the solution exhibits singularities at $V = c_0$, the shallow-water-gravity-wave speed, and $V = c_{\min}$, the minimum speed for transverse motion of the ice, but these singularities are avoided by the acceleration of the load through the critical speeds.

text: The response of a floating ice sheet to an accelerating line load The two-dimensional response of a thin, floating sheet of ice to a line load that accelerates from rest at $t = 0$ to a uniform velocity V for $t \geq T$ is determined through an integral-transform solution of the linearized equations of motion. If $T = 0$ – i.e. if the load is impulsively started with velocity V – the solution exhibits singularities at $V = c_0$, the shallow-water-gravity-wave speed, and $V = c_{\min}$, the minimum speed for transverse motion of the ice, but these singularities are avoided by the acceleration of the load through the critical speeds.

year: 2003

title: Kei ō tātou ringa te rongoa? Is the remedy already at hand?
The assertion and application of tikanga as a valid and credible response to contemporary issues.

authors: Taitoko, Mikaere

subjects: tikanga

abstract: This thesis examines the notion that tikanga is well positioned to address issues confronting Māori and other indigenous groups who strive to achieve self-determination and the freedom to be and to do.  This work is inspired by the late John Te Rangi-āniwaniwa Rangihau’s statement, “Ko te rongoā kei roto i ō tātau ringa” (1987, p. 24), which promotes the notion that through culture and identity Māori already have within their grasp the answers to contemporary matters of import in te ao Māori.  This thesis inverts that statement and presents it as a question querying whether indeed the remedy is at hand and, if so, could tikanga and cultural identity be that remedy.  To that end this study deliberately sets out to examine if the rongoa of self-determination, power and freedom can be achieved by the assertion and application of Māori ways of being and doing, that is to say by exercising tikanga.
Understanding notions of tikanga, sovereignty, and indigeneity is pivotal to this study as is articulating the notion of third space.  This thesis argues that these four notions are interconnected when considering ideas of self-determination for disempowered groups.  A case study forms a large part of this work and focuses on an indigenous group operating from a pre-contact tupuna worldview and based on He Whakaputanga o te Rangatiratanga o Nu Tireni 1835/Declaration of Independence of New Zealand 1835.  This particular group was chosen because it presented as being a point of intersect for the four notions of tikanga, sovereignty, indigeneity and the third space.
This thesis argues that whilst tikanga is a powerful mechanism for determining and rationalising ways of being and doing it has less to offer at a pragmatic level when it comes to effecting change in the status quo.  However, when overlaid with the third space lens new perspectives can be enunciated and new opportunities detected which in turn can lead to determining new actions.  Through this study it becomes clear that the assertion and application of tikanga contributes to, but on its own is not, the whole answer.

text: Kei ō tātou ringa te rongoa? Is the remedy already at hand?
The assertion and application of tikanga as a valid and credible response to contemporary issues. This thesis examines the notion that tikanga is well positioned to address issues confronting Māori and other indigenous groups who strive to achieve self-determination and the freedom to be and to do.  This work is inspired by the late John Te Rangi-āniwaniwa Rangihau’s statement, “Ko te rongoā kei roto i ō tātau ringa” (1987, p. 24), which promotes the notion that through culture and identity Māori already have within their grasp the answers to contemporary matters of import in te ao Māori.  This thesis inverts that statement and presents it as a question querying whether indeed the remedy is at hand and, if so, could tikanga and cultural identity be that remedy.  To that end this study deliberately sets out to examine if the rongoa of self-determination, power and freedom can be achieved by the assertion and application of Māori ways of being and doing, that is to say by exercising tikanga.
Understanding notions of tikanga, sovereignty, and indigeneity is pivotal to this study as is articulating the notion of third space.  This thesis argues that these four notions are interconnected when considering ideas of self-determination for disempowered groups.  A case study forms a large part of this work and focuses on an indigenous group operating from a pre-contact tupuna worldview and based on He Whakaputanga o te Rangatiratanga o Nu Tireni 1835/Declaration of Independence of New Zealand 1835.  This particular group was chosen because it presented as being a point of intersect for the four notions of tikanga, sovereignty, indigeneity and the third space.
This thesis argues that whilst tikanga is a powerful mechanism for determining and rationalising ways of being and doing it has less to offer at a pragmatic level when it comes to effecting change in the status quo.  However, when overlaid with the third space lens new perspectives can be enunciated and new opportunities detected which in turn can lead to determining new actions.  Through this study it becomes clear that the assertion and application of tikanga contributes to, but on its own is not, the whole answer.

year: 2013