With the advent of the Minimum Requirements for Teacher Education Qualifications policy (MRTEQ), higher education institutions (HEIs) are rethinking curricula for teacher training in order to enable entree for in-service teachers to reskill, retrain and have access to higher qualifications. In the field of mathematical literacy (ML), most teacher…

The teaching of mathematics for the development of numeracy is emerging to be an important goal of recent reforms. In broad terms, numeracy involves the application of mathematical concepts and procedures in the understanding and solution of a range of problems including real-life problems. Teaching for numeracy, thus calls for skills in…

In this article, I present an initial analysis of an empirical study that was undertaken in an attempt to elicit what subject-matter knowledge, pedagogic content knowledge and curriculum knowledge teachers bring to bear on decisions for teaching. The analysis is based on interview data with 46 Grade 3 teachers, who were presented with two…

In this paper, three elements of primary pre-service teachers' relationships with mathematics are explored: mathematical achievement, feelings about the subject, and confidence to teach mathematics. At the beginning of their programme, under half of the pre-service teachers did not meet the numeracy requirements and took part in a support…

The goal of this study was to investigate understanding of in-service elementary school teachers in Taiwan about number sense, teaching strategies of number sense and the development of number sense of students. Data were gathered through interviews of nine elementary mathematics teachers, regarding their understanding about number sense. The data…

This paper describes part of research conducted with fifteen Numeracy Coaches as they carried out their work supporting teachers in Victorian government schools. There was great variation in the mathematical background of coaches, and this area of the research investigated the changing perception of professional learning priorities to support…

This paper reports on the evaluation of a six-day programme that provided professional learning to middle school teachers with the aim of equipping them to assist their pupils to achieve improved numeracy outcomes. A teacher profiling instrument designed to measure varied aspects of teachers' knowledge for teaching mathematics was administered to…

In Australia, concerns about the quality of mathematics education that students experience are particularly salient in rural schools. These schools typically report great difficulty in attracting and retaining qualified teachers of mathematics. Teachers in non-metropolitan locations may also experience professional isolation if they have limited…

This research focused on the perceptions of pre-service and beginning health and physical education (HPE) teachers in relation to their preparedness for teaching. A questionnaire was designed to engage with teacher professional standards addressing (i), professional knowledge; (ii), professional relationships and (iii), professional practice.…

Studies such as the Effective Teachers of Numeracy Study (Askew, Brown, Rhodes, Johnson, & Wiliam (1997) have contributed much to our understanding of what constitutes effective teaching of numeracy. This paper aims to build on these findings and to contribute a model that could be used to understand teachers' numeracy practices and the…

This is a record of the proceedings of the 30th annual conference of the Mathematics Education Research Group of Australasia (MERGA). The theme of the conference is "Mathematics: Essential research, essential practice." The theme draws attention to the importance of developing and maintaining links between research and practice and…