Trouche's paper
Mood:  chillin'
Now Playing: O Holy Night (Josh Groban) - Christmas music in July!
Topic: Analytical Frameworks
Well, I went and looked for Trouche's paper and found it - unfortunately it is in French! My high school french couldn't really do justice to the paper, but got Google to help me translate some stuff. I don't think there was anything too different what I got from Artigue's paper, except got all 5 of the profiles and how he categorised these students.

He did mention that these profiles are for the extreme cases of the students, and it is not likely you can peg students with one profile.

However, he was using the TI-82 and TI-92 calculators (one for symbolic representation and the other for graphical presentation) and he seemed more to deal with how students interact with the software such as the zooming function and the commands and switching between windows etc. i.e. things that were specific to these calculators rather than looking how students use technology to learn, I was hoping for something more like the exploration of numbers etc., but he tended to look at the time they used the calculator for a task and also when they did collaborative work with a partner or use pen and paper. Can't remember he mentioning much about the pen/paper (then again my french - il est terrible!) So, probably skipped it over somewhere.

Anyway, so don't think I'll be using those strategies.

I've tried to find the one by Goos et al, unfortunately we don't subscribe to that journal (Mathematics Education Research Journal its published in Australia)- so means I've got to order it - but will only order it if I think it is necessary, the information provided by Galbraith seems sufficient.

ICTM Conference
Mood:  a-ok
Now Playing: Draw of the Cards (Kim Carnes)
Topic: Seminars
So, came back from Turkey yesterday (arrived home at 7pm) ... the conference in Istanbul was great ... met a lot of people who I was able to network with - particularly people from Australia from a range of universities - so that was good.

Hung out with some of the Turkish people as well and some people from the US (mainly from Tuscon!).

I'm not sure how great all the seminars were but was able to meet some of the researchers whose papers I've read, particularly Pat Cretchley and Leigh Wood. It just so nice to actually meet these people. Love these international conferences - because most of the work that is being done on CAS is occuring in Australia and you really don't meet much of these people in the UK.

Critical Reader
Mood:  a-ok
Now Playing: My Eyes Can Only See As Far As You (Charley Pride)
Topic: Meetings
So, Hossein Z. just came into my office and showed me my probation report and asked me if I sent it to him, and I said probably Anne F. did, and then he asked me do I know why she would have sent that to him .. and I looked a bit confused and said "Didn't James asked you to be a critical reader?" ... and then he said oh yes but that was such a long time ago.

So, then he asked me if there was anything I wanted him to look at in particular (and then my mind went blank - I was like a deer caught in the headlights - I had no clue!) - so then, told him perhaps my methodology (because I thought that seem reasonable and it was my weakest chapter)... and then he asks me what in my methodology (well he got me there!) - so I said my tasks for linear programming (and I think he was going to say that no one does linear programming but then he taught better of saying that :P) ... and asked me what kind of students it was suppose to be and I said university students and he wanted to know if it was at the OU and I said no it could be students at universities and told me about a LP component he was writing for the business school and asked him if that was BM240 and told him about BM240 ... and I also told him about the tasks I need to create which I have no idea about as yet (its a bit difficult to explain something where I don't even know what his frame of reference is i.e. where I should begin) - he looked a bit confused and ask me if it was for data collection and I said yes - I guess my interpretation of methodology was methods :D and his was more theoretical (big problem already!).

Anyway, there goes my first impression to my critical reader - not a very good one ... :D ... hope he doesn't hold it against me. But Rebecca said the least CREET could have done was send a covering letter indicating what it was and what was expected from them. Well ... I thought that would have been standard operating procedure because how do they know how to be a critical reader?

Supervision meeting
Mood:  bright
Now Playing: Wild Child (Enya)
Topic: Meetings
Yesterday afternoon I had my supervision meeting, and strangely enough all three of them were there. Now that was surprising since I only expected Doug and James.

Anyway, we got to talking about how to developed the mathematical tasks to see what occurs when using the black-box and white-box software. I told them, I had spoken to Jonathan and he had suggested checking for the strategies that student's may employed. James was all so pleased to hear this, he was going to say something I imagine on strategies but I pre-empted him because he was saying probably it might not be sufficient just to check and see if students get these tasks right or wrong ... so just jumped straight in and told him about the strategies.

So, told them about the article I was reading by Artigue (2003) about the profiling of strategies she spoked off by a doctoral student. There are five profiles that a student may undertake when using software and mathematics. These profiles were theorist (references, interpretation and analogy), rationalist (paper&pen, inference and proof), scholastic, tinkerer (calculator, investigation and accumulation) and experimentalist. Got to find the original work by Trouche (2000) to further understand these profiles. But thought these might something be good to look at - although James suggested I could develop and determine my own strategies.

I was also reading a paper by Galbraith (2002) this morning and there is also a profiling of attitudes of students towards technology and he reported on some of these - originally done by Goos et al (2000) - I've got to find that paper. There is four: technology is considered as the master, servant, partner and extension of yourself. Like this idea as well but think it is two different approaches need to see how they can be combined.
(Anyway got to go now - its my birthday and meeting Tina in 6 mins - got to run!)

Probation Report
Mood:  a-ok
Now Playing: You Needed Me (Anne Murray)
Topic: Thesis writing
So, the probation report is off!!! I submitted it on Friday - so have no reason to think about it until July 17th comes my way. Unfortunately, not very proud of it, don't think I have any clear argument or rather a very critical literature review. It is lacking severely in those areas - but needed to get it off - so not too proud of it. I think I might cringe when I read the final version before my mini-viva.

Anyway, got the CALRG and the ICTM conference coming up and I have to prepare the presentations for those.

Probation Proposal again :D
Mood:  a-ok
Now Playing: Kasto Mazza (Parineeta)
Topic: Thesis writing
So, have a supervisory meeting this afternoon - don't think I'm going to have much favorable comments on it - it was bit of a rushed job. I'm still hoping it would come together - but it is taking forever to gel in my head exactly what I'm doing - but I think with each of the patchy jobs I keep doing it seems to get better and better ... not great as yet. I'm still not sure about my rationale and purpose and whether the literature review is critical enough and helps support my argument. I think one of my problems is that I loathe to drop out any of my literature since I spent so much time writing it up ... but I think I have to make the decision and drop the unnecessary bits that are no adding to my argument but still uncertain what my argument is at the moment - I think perhaps that is why it is so patchy.

Let's see if I can identify my argument clearly here. I think my argument is although there have been studies into how students learn with mathematical software, there hasn't been much work done on how students learn with black-box and white-box software. Right got that. So, that is one part of the argument. The other part is that the belief that how students learn with software differ between disciplines. Yeah that is one other thing. I think I further want to establish that the use of a software in the learning and teaching process may also vary between the disciplines. And that some software may be used in a white-box or black-box manner.

So, probably I think I want to establish how is software used in the teaching and learning linear programming, that is, how it is transformed into a learning tool in the different disciplines ... yeah something like that - and what this transformation entails (i.e. going from black-box to white-box etc - any exploration). Also, whether this transformation impacts on the learning of the student.

My problem how are you going to see the transformation of these learning tools as it is by remote observation and only one student? Would I have to take into account the collaborative aspect? I'm not quite sure what kind of data I will get to see this data - what is the transformation going to be shown? Getting more confused by the minute.

Probation Proposal
Mood:  a-ok
Now Playing: Poor Shirley (Christopher Cross)
Topic: Methodology
Well, had a meeting with Doug yesterday about my probation report and it went surprisingly much better than I expected. But he did say my methodology was a bit thin. I need to improve that and decide my sample size etc.

Well what I did say was that I wanted to have some students and give them some tasks and interview some students ... but not sure how that would actually occur ... :)

However, I did say I had three pilot studies ... the 1st hopefully would be sent out next week if I can get one of the courses to agree with me to send of the questionnaire!!! I have no idea about numbers ... was thinking if I can get about 10-20 students to test each of the second pilot I might have something there. Well, got to think about tomorrow - just realise I have to send a place holder abstract for the CALRG conference!

Good and Bad Things with my survey
Mood:  crushed out
Now Playing: Drift Away (Uncle Kracker)
Topic: Data Collection
Well ... I finally got approval for my survey from the SRPP ... however it was with the condition that I ensure that the courses I want to survey do not want to survey their own courses later in the year and I'll obstruct that process. Whilst some course teams were delighted with what I'm doing and wanted to know my results others were not - and have not given me permission since they've taken it upon themselves to decide whether the questionnaire is appropriate or not for their students - so, I'm stuck there.

Actually one of the course team (I'm gonna call it one of the good ones) invited me over for a chat - and we discussed a lot of stuff of mathematics and computing and they were telling me of some course surveys they did about the use of computers in their course and they even gave me the results. It was great. One guy was really enthusiastic ... he gave me references and books as well. It was great knowing that people were interesting in my research.

Unfortunately on the the course team (one of the bad ones) - couldn't see the sense of sending the questionnaire to their students ... that got me thoroughly frustrated! That was on Thursday ...

U500 conference
Mood:  a-ok
Now Playing: The First Time (Freddie Hart)
Topic: Seminars
So, next week is the U500 conference ... and I'm presenting on the Wednesday. Slightly apprehensive of it this time, because this time around, I'm not as certain as I was last year on what I'm doing. Last year I pretty much knew, this year I'm still floundering around. And that keeps me anxious.

My presentation has something about software and linear programming, but it doesn't't even touch what I really originally wanted to do, which is look at steps in software. I'm not sure how I'm going to do that and relate it to this new direction I seem to be heading.

I really want to look at white-box and black-box software, but it seems that as if I'm looking at dedicated, generic and spreadsheet software instead. I think what is keeping me back is that I know that software may transition between black-box and white-box - it all depends on how it is use by the student or used by the teacher to present the work.

However, I have to keep in focus, that I have to do something that is 'doable' - even if it isn't what I do (well - I mean I still like my area and research - but would have liked to go extra and do the black-box and white-box). I'm still trying to see if I can squeeze it in.

I'm still being silently horrified with my methodology, because I don't know where to get courses, or students studying LP to help me out. Zsolt might be teaching LP in June in Michigan university, so probably he could help me out a bit (if I could figure what I'm doing!).

I still have the BM240, MU120 and M373 students to get something done with them, but not entirely sure...

There is the conception of mathematics questionnaire that seems a bit fascinating, I'm thinking that might relate to the preference of software (white-box or black-box). Coupland already did some research with that and software - but only used Mathematica ... with maths students ... probably I can expand that to be a class of software and be linear programming students ... don't know .... a bit stumped.

Meeting with Mick
Mood:  a-ok
Now Playing: I Don't Want to Wait (Paula Cole)
Topic: Interviews
So, went and meet Mick Bromilow yesterday to discuss linear programming and software. I thought perhaps he knew about linear programming in the UK and the OU, but as it turns out he is not in the linear programming research area - so, not able to network there. But he did share some light on the M373 course since he was part of the team that developed it. According to him, M373 (which had various versions before) was developed because they considered they should have an optimization course as part of the applied mathematics degree. LP used to be taught in a level 2 course but was removed to make more room for other applied maths like mechanics.

Mick indicated that although simplex is taught there are better algorithms now available such as the interior point method which students should be taught but believed that the simplex will continue as it forms part of most linear programming curricula.

He indicated that previously in-house software was created for LP, but because the need for continuous updates a commercial software was chosen - the reason for MathCad. Also, most of the students would be familiar with MathCad since they would have used it since the entry into their OU course (not to mention OU has a licence for it) - and hence made sense to do linear programming in this way. They developed a number of worksheets templates for the students and in these the students are able to solve the problem using the matrix method rather than the tableau method for formulating the problem for solving. The course is not concerned with the students being proficient at solving the linear programming by hand, but rather being able to set up large scale problems to be solved. Hence, the MathCad just requires the student for pressing F9 to solve the problem. There is however a window in which they can see how the calculations are occurring in the background, although students are required to know the terms pivot point, pivot row they don't actually need to know these for carrying out the computer solution. However, TMA questions may require the student to examine the background calculation window to describe what might be occurring.

The templates were developed by them and the LTS team to make sure they could be readable and understandable to the student.

He also indicated that as this is a maths course they weren't too concerned about the graphics side of the LP, as that is only a 2 variable problem - but it is taught to give an understanding of how solutions are found (I'm not quite sure if this is what he actually said - but I think so ).