Suela Kacerja

• PhD in Mathematics Education
• Associate professor at University of South-Eastern Norway

LAMIS's (Nowegian National theme for Mathematics in Schools) resources for the UN's Sustainable Development Goals include a variety of concrete teaching plans and assignments targeted towards mathematics education. Based on the LAMIS assignment that addressed Sustainable Development Goal number 6 – how sustainable water management should ensure cle...

The revised Norwegian curriculum emphasises developing students’ ethical awareness as a core value in education, applying to all school subjects. This requires that teachers, who are the facilitators of students’ ethical awareness, are aware of ethical aspects of issues themselves and that they are ethically aware of how to take their relationship...

This article explores the values that come to the fore when preservice mathematics teachers (PTs) engage in critical discussions about the role of mathematical models in society. The specific model that was discussed was the Body Mass Index (BMI). From the analysis of the PTs’ discussions of the BMI from a mathematical and societal point of view se...

The teaching and learning of mathematical modelling in the Nordic and Baltic contexts

Results of a first stage of the project "Evaluering av fagfornyelsen" - evaluating the implementation of the new curriculum in Norway.

Mathematical modelling and applications have gained a prominent place as one of the core elements in mathematics in the Norwegian curriculum, in addition to an emphasis on interdisciplinary topics such as sustainable development. Given the curriculum changes, our research group undertook a project with sciences and mathematics in focus, involving t...

The study presented in this paper focuses on primary school teachers engaging with the Body Mass Index (BMI) as part of a university course. The BMI is seen as an example of prescriptive modelling where mathematics is used to keep track of the obesity phenomenon. Four categories are developed to characterize the teachers' discussions: the mathemati...

The purpose of this study is to get insight into the aspects of mathematical modelling (MM) that primary preservice teachers (PTs) focus on when planning teaching for school practicum. The analyzed planning session was part of the PTs mathematics education course in their second year. All the PTs have the concern to choose a topic that interests th...

From a socio-critical modelling perspective, we research how students reflect when using a Carbon Footprint Calculator (CFC) in their work with climate changeChange in the mathematics classroom. The findings show that lower secondary school students reflect on issues such as: how the calculators work; how variables impact the output; how to make se...

The chapter concerns prescriptive mathematical modellingMathematical modelling and the development of critical competence. The potential of such modelling examples to promote critical discussionsCritical discussions about the role of mathematical modelsMathematical models in society is argued. A study is presented in which Norwegian and South Afric...

The phenomenon of post-truth and fake news has given rise to concerns about the development of deliberative democracies. There is a fear that manipulation of people's sentiments and fabricated facts will steer politics and decision-making. Political argumentation and decision-making are often supported by quantified information. Quantities, in form...

One of the aims with school mathematics, as described in different curriculum documents, is for students to develop their critical competence in mathematics. The critical competence includes critical discussions about the use and influence of mathematical models in society, which is the focus in the socio-critical modelling perspective (Blum, 2015)...

In this paper, we investigate three examples from two articles written by lower-secondary students in which they identify school mathematics used in workplaces. The articles were written as part of a project aiming to help students find mathematics relevant. By using findings from previous studies on mathematical competences and skills needed in wo...

In this paper, we apply the ideas of Lord about critical colleagueship to understand how mathematics teacher educators (MTEs) can work together to become more critical in their teaching practices. There is relatively little research on MTEs’ learning and development from a critical perspective. Our study examines a group of MTEs working together to...

In this paper, teacher educators’ stories about young children engaging in mathematical activities are discussed. There has been little previous research about teacher educators, without experiences as kindergarten teachers, reflecting on their own understandings about how to engage children in mathematical situations. The teacher educators’ storie...

This book gives insight in the vivid research area of early mathematics learning. The collection of selected papers mirror the research topics presented at the third POEM conference. Thematically, the volume reflects the importance of this relatively new field of research. Structurally, the book tries to guide the reader through a variety of resear...

The main purpose of our research project is to gain insight into, and develop teaching on indices and their applications in society. In this paper, the focus is to present insights into teachers’ reflections when discussing the Body Mass Index (BMI). Skovsmose´s concept of mathemacy, and source criticism, are chosen as conceptual framework. The dat...

I presentasjonen løfter vi frem innsikt i kompleksiteten knyttet til perspektivskifter når lærere diskuterer indekser og bruk av indekser i samfunnet. Dataene kommer fra et etterutdanningskurs for barneskolelærere om regning i alle fag. Bakhtins begreper flerstemmighet og sentripetal- og sentrifugal krefter brukes til å undersøke hvordan lærere pos...

In this paper, we present insights about the complexity of in-service teachers’ shifting of perspectives when indices and the society’s use of indices are discussed. The data are collected from an in-service course on numeracy for teachers in primary school. The concepts polyphony and centripetal and centrifugal forces from Bakhtin´s dialogism are...

In this paper, a methodology is proposed for gaining insights into preservice teachers’ understandings about young children’s mathematics learning. Using data from a Swedish and Norwegian pilot study, it is possible to see how a set of questions about a stimulus photo of children playing with some glass jars provided insights into the preservice te...

This paper reports on an investigation on the real-life situations students in grades 8 and 9 in South Africa and Albania prefer to use in Mathematics. The functioning of the instrument used to assess the order of preference learners from both countries have for contextual situations is assessed using Rasch modeling techniques. For both the cohorts...

This article reports on a qualitative investigation of Albanian students’ motives for preferring certain real-life situations to be used in school mathematics, and possible connections of these motives to characteristics and issues within Albanian society. It is based on realistic interviews with students from Grades 8 and 9 in a school in the dist...