Welcome to the Mathematics Education Centre's 3rd annual symposium!

 

 

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About the Mathematics Education Centre

Research in the MEC explores the fundamental  processes involved in learning mathematics, and analyses, develops and evaluates pedagogical practice designed to enhance mathematical learning. The Centre has two interest groups which form the focus of our research activity. These are the Culture, Pedagogy and Identity Interest Group and the Mathematical Cognition Interest Group.

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About the symposium

The focus of our third annual symposium is understanding how mathematical symbols, such as Arabic numerals or number words, gain meaning, often called the “symbol grounding problem”. 

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Until recently the dominant account in the numerical cognition literature suggested that numerical symbols gain meaning by being mapped onto nonsymbolic magnitude representations generated by a so-called ‘approximate number system’. However, a number of recent research findings call into question this proposal, and alternative approaches are now being actively developed. The symbol grounding problem lies at the heart of models of numerical cognition and has important implications for the ways in which we support children’s number development.

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This symposium will bring together researchers who are employing a range of methodologies to investigate this question to present and discuss the latest findings and developments in the field.