Pedagogical Content Knowledge
Geometry
This page will provide resources that may assist teachers' professional learning in the area of geometry.
Shape
Professional Readings
Cambridge University, Espresso publication.
Snapshot of research about early development of spatial skills and the importance of developing these skills.
Douglas H Clements (State University of New York at Buffalo)
This paper examines how young children learn about space and geometry, discusses how they think about specific concepts in this area and presents activities and teaching approaches to support development.
Section 1 of the paper examines how children learn about space and geometry.
Section 2 discuses how children of different ages think about salient mathematical concepts: shape, spatial orientation, and spatial visualization and imagery.
Section 3 presents suggestions for instructing young children, including use of manipulatives and pictures, computer manipulatives, and the Agam program to develop the visual language of young children. The paper concludes by noting that it is essential that geometry and spatial sense receive greater attention in instruction and research.
Douglas H Clements & Julie Sarama (University of Denver)
This article describes research on young children's thinking of geometric shapes and draws implications for teaching and learning.
Mairead Hourigan & Aisling Leavy (Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick)
This article describes a range of teaching and learning activities focusing on the identification and classification of 2-dimensional shapes. The activities described are useful in highlighting students’ misconceptions regarding non-traditioanl and non-prototypical shapes.
Resources
This resource was developed by the Australian Catholic University (ACU) for Catholic Education Melbourne as part of the Strategic Support Mathematics and the Contemporary Teaching and Learning (CTLM) professional learning program.
This paper gives examples of some of the different types of quadrilaterals and how different sets of shapes are related to each Early Years Interview.
This interview has a section on the Properties of Shape and Visualisation and growth points to track and monitor student learning.
This resource was developed by the Australian Catholic University (ACU) for Catholic Education Melbourne as part of the Strategic Support Mathematics and the Contemporary Teaching and Learning (CTLM) professional learning program.
This is a quick and easy reference.
(ACU, 2011)
This resource was developed by the Australian Catholic University (ACU) for Catholic Education Melbourne as part of the Strategic Support Mathematics and the Contemporary Teaching and Learning (CTLM) professional learning program. The plenary was presented by Jill Brown (ACU). It can be used as a quick guide for identifying the properties, classification and visualisation of shapes
Location and Transformation
Professional Readings
**NEW** Hide, Map and Seek: Assessing students’ understanding of location and direction APMC 18 (4) 2013
Leicha A. Bragg (Deakin University)
"In this article Leicha Bragg introduces an open-ended assessment task that gives students the opportunity to access skills and knowledge from the Measurement and Geometry strand. Students take on the roles of cartographer and map user to ‘hide, map and seek’."
Leicha A. Bragg (Deakin University)
"If you love taking mathematics lessons outdoors, then you will love this article. Leicha Bragg describes geocaching, which combines technology, treasure hunting and mathematics, and results in purposeful, authentic and engaging mathematics."
**NEW** I can locate it! Teaching location with the assistance of digital technologies APMC 23(3) 2018
Emilia Vatalis (Department of Education, NSW)
"An exploration about how the use of digital devices such as fitness trackers, robotic toys and handheld mobile devices may be used by teachers to enhance student learning in geometric reasoning."