Education 904

Field Work I: Secondary Mathematics Education

Prof: Peter Liljedahl Cell: 604-764-6764 Office: EDB8662 Email:
Course Websites:

Dates and Times:
Sept 6
Oct 11 Nov 8*
Dec 13
Nov 14* / 4:30pm – 9:20pm
4:30pm – 9:20pm
4:30pm – 9:20pm
4:30pm – 9:20pm
4:30pm – 9:20pm / EDB 8651
EDB 8651
EDB 8651
EDB 8651
EDB 7500F (only if Nov 8 is cancelled)
Readings:Supplementary material will be posted when needed.

Course Requirements:

This course is a designed to support you in your field work. As such, it is designed around both face to face monthly meetings and ongoing contact through a WIKI. The course requirements have been designed accordingly:

  1. Research Question – It is expected that you identify a research question regarding the teaching of mathematics that can be pursued within your own classroom. Thisquestion will likely evolve and maybe change completely as the course goes on. The research question(s) needs to be approved by the instructor.
  2. Wiki (80%) – You will be given your own page on the Educ 811 wiki. Your wiki page should contain a brief outline of what it is that you plan to research within your classroom including a summary of your intended method and anticipated results. This will change as you progress and you can edit your wiki page to reflect your evolution. Your wiki page is also where you will post all of your attachments. Behind each wiki page is a discussion page. This is where you post your progress reports. Each report should be a new discussion. You must post at least once a week, but you can do more. Your postings do not all have to do with your research question. For example, you may be doing research on gender issues but post on something to do about group work that you are playing around with. In essence, think of the discussion list as an on-line journal. You are also able to include attachments in your postings, but not on the discussion link. As a participant in the class you are also required to engage in the work of others by visiting their discussion postings and adding comments.
  3. Literature Review (20%) – You will also be required to engage with literature during your research. In particular, you will need to find 8 articles (bookchapters, books, thesis, etc.) that INFORMS your work. This is not a count of how many articles you read - it is a count of how many articles are helpful. For each of these 8 articles you need to write a summary and an explanation of what you took from it that informed you. Each of these reports gets published as a discussion on your wiki page.