Conference synopsis_FINAL_20260815 - Flipbook - Page 104
SESSION E: Friday, 11am-12pm (cont.)
Practical tools, resources, and school examples will be
shared throughout the session. Participants will leave with a
clear process for leading mathematics improvement that is
manageable, evidence-informed, and adaptable to their own
school context.
Key takeaways:
1. Understand the structure and purpose of short
improvement sprints in mathematics.
2. Identify high-impact, explicit teaching practices suitable for
sprint focus.
3.Learn how to define a sharp problem of practice.
Key takeaways:
1. Teacher advice acts as a powerful nudge, simplifying
complex academic decisions and overcoming cognitive
biases.
2. Recommendations are crucial for enhancing STEM access,
especially for female students and those in regional and rural
areas.
3. Educators, as choice architects, must ensure equitable,
well-informed guidance for inclusive STEM participation.
4. Use practical tools to plan, enact, and monitor a sprint
cycle.
E32 COUNTRY AND MATHS: WHERE CAN
MATHS AND INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGES
MEET?
5. Explore examples of impact on student engagement,
participation, and learning.
Sub-category: Engaging and including every learner
Michael Donovan, La Trobe University
Early Childhood - Y12
E31 TEACHER NUDGES: STEERING
STUDENTS TOWARD SENIOR MATHEMATICS
AND STEM PATHWAYS
Sub-category: Engaging and including every learner
Janelle Hill, Charles Sturt University, Hazel Tan, Monash
University
Y7 - Y12
Teacher recommendations significantly influence students’
participation in senior VCE mathematics subjects and STEM
extension programs. These recommendations function as
powerful ‘nudges’ within an educational ‘choice architecture,’
subtly guiding students’ decisions without limiting their
autonomy. By leveraging the trusted authority of educators,
these nudges can help students overcome cognitive biases
such as the tendency to stick with familiar options (status
quo bias) or to avoid perceived risks (loss aversion). This
influence is particularly critical in making opportunities visible
and accessible for underrepresented groups, such as female
students, and for teachers in regional and rural areas, where
informational infrastructure is limited and rates of out-of-field
mathematics teaching are high. The ethical dimension of this
role is crucial for teachers to consider, as educators, acting
as choice architects, and ensure their recommendations are
equitable, well-informed, and transparent to foster broad and
inclusive participation in STEM.
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This workshop explores how Indigenous understandings
can be meaningfully and respectfully embedded within
mathematics education. It acknowledges that many
teachers feel uncertain about how to incorporate Indigenous
perspectives authentically, and that this hesitation can limit
action despite strong intent.
The session argues that stronger foundations in Australia’s
shared histories and the coexistence of Indigenous and nonIndigenous knowledge systems are needed to avoid tokenistic
practice. It explores intersections between mathematics
and Indigenous Knowledges, including pattern recognition,
relationality, navigation, spatial awareness, environmental
observation and intergenerational knowledge transmission.
Participants will reflect on how identity, prior knowledge
and lived experience shape learners’ engagement with
mathematics, and how inclusive approaches can connect
mathematics to relationships, place, history and belonging.
Key takeaways:
1. Greater confidence to embed Indigenous understandings
in mathematics authentically and respectfully.
2. Practical insight into connections between Indigenous
Knowledges and mathematical thinking.
3. A deeper understanding of how inclusive mathematics
teaching can support diverse learners.
