Accelerated Inclusive Mathematics (AIM)

Project dates: 01/11/2009 - Ongoing

Background

The Accelerated Inclusive Mathematics project has been developed from the DEEWR-funded Closing the Gap: Expansion of Intensive Literacy and Numeracy program for Indigenous students, Accelerated Indigenous Mathematics project. The name has changed because the project now runs in schools where it is used with non-Indigenous as well as Indigenous students and because it has been reconceptualised for a wider role in these schools.

AIM trials and refines a YDM-based diagnostic and remedial maths pedagogy for underachieving students, providing a framework to accelerate their learning across Years 7 to 9 to promote entry into Year 10 mathematics offerings. AIM has been successful in a diverse range of schools.

Components

The AIM project includes:

  • resources – 24 culturally and contextually appropriate teaching modules that provide vertical sequences of activities and assessment tasks for all mathematics topics
  • services – professional development workshops to train teachers in remedial pedagogy and in using the 24 modules, with online support including email communication, discussion forum and help desk
  • research – involving all teachers in action research on their practices, analysing data provided by teachers on the interaction between researcher actions, teacher practices and student learning, and drawing implications for modules and professional development workshops and for a theory of mathematics acceleration.

The 24 AIM modules provide teaching ideas for mathematics topics in sequence from Year 3 to Year 9. Because they include units of work up to Year 9, their final units are also a resource of age-appropriate activities to teach Years 7 to 9 mathematics, even for students with no difficulties. This enables the AIM modules to have much wider use in secondary schools by supporting all classroom mathematics teaching in Years 7 to 9. Schools can use AIM in two ways:

  • replacement – replacing the Australian Curriculum for Years 7 to 9 with the 24 AIM modules
  • support – using the 24 modules to enable the Australian Curriculum to be implemented with diagnosis and remediation.

Funding / Grants

  • Commonwealth Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (2009 - 2013)

Chief Investigators

Team

Publications

  • , , & (2013) Overcoming challenges of being an in-field mathematics teacher in Indigenous secondary school classrooms. In Ball, L, Steinle, V, & Bardini, C (Eds.) Mathematics education: Yesterday, today and tomorrow (Proceedings of the 36th Annual Conference of the Mathematics Education Research Group of Australasia). Mathematics Education Research Group of Australasia, Australia, pp. 594-601.
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  • , , & (2013) Pedagogical changes in moving from traditional worksheet to active structural classroom pedagogies inspired by Australian Indigenous learning approaches. In Heinze, A & Lindmeier, A M (Eds.) Proceedings of the 37th Conference of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education, Volume 3. PME / Leibniz Institute for Science and Mathematics Education, Germany, pp. 169-176.
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  • , , & (2012) Teacher aides and their pedagogical contributions in the underachieving Indigenous mathematics classroom. In Yu, S (Ed.) Proceedings of the 2nd International STEM in Education Conference. Beijing Normal University, China, pp. 184-193.
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  • , , & (2013) The pedagogical contribution of the teacher aide in Indigenous classrooms. In Heinze, A & Lindmeier, A M (Eds.) Proceedings of the 37th Conference of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education, Volume 3. PME / Leibniz Institute for Science and Mathematics Education, Germany, pp. 161-168.
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