Prof. Tom Lowrie

Brief CV

Tom was appointed as a Centenary Research Professor at the University of Canberra in 2014. His previous positions included working as a primary school classroom teacher, teaching mathematics education and research method courses to undergraduate and postgraduate students and working with classroom teachers on curriculum frameworks.

Tom has an established international research profile in the discipline area of mathematics education. His concentrated and sustained (over almost 20 years) body of work has focused on the extent to which primary-aged students use spatial reasoning and visual imagery to solve mathematics problems and the role and nature of graphics in mathematics assessment. More recently, his research has expanded to include students’ use of digital tools and dynamic imagery to solve problems. He has also developed frameworks for Mathematics learning to be utilised across classrooms internationally, such as ELPSA (Experience, Language, Pictorial, Symbolic and Applications). The ELPSA framework provides a mathematics lesson design based on an active process where students develop understanding through individual thinking and social interactions, consistent with the way we learn most things in life. 

In the past 10 years, Tom has attracted over $5 million in nationally competitive research projects, including five ARC Discovery grants and one Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade Government Partnerships for Development grant. He works closely with industry partners including the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA), the World Bank, The Pearson Foundation and a number of education jurisdictions across Australia and Indonesia.

 Abstract

The potential of genuine artefacts within the ELPSA framework

This presentation examines the potential of genuine artefacts to change pedagogical practices in mathematics classrooms. Genuine artefacts promote problem-solving situations that allow students to personalise mathematics (De Corte, Verschaffel, and Greer 2000). Such artefacts may include practical and realistic resources that stimulate thinking in ways that connect mathematics to every-day situations. Provided teachers are able to consider the context in which students are immersed the use of these artefacts can bridge school and out-of-school experiences (Lowrie 2011).

Within an Indonesian context, our research group has been working with junior high school teachers on a learning framework that can ensure students’ personal experiences and applications of mathematics are both meaningful and realistic. This process is framed around the ELPSA learning framework (Lowrie & Patahuddin, 2015).

The ELPSA framework views learning as an active cyclic process where students construct their own ways of knowing (developing understanding) through both individual thinking and social interaction with others (Lowrie & Patahuddin, 2015). Its design is underpinned by theories about learning that are considered constructivist and social in nature (Lowrie & Patahuddin, 2015). As Wenger (1999) indicated, meaning (the understanding of a concept) is most meaningfully developed through opportunities associated with one’s personal life experience or opportunities to sustain mutual engagement. The ELPSA design presents mathematical ideas through lived experiences, mathematical conversations (Language), visual stimuli (Pictures), symbolic notations (Symbols), and the applied knowledge (Application) (Lowrie & Patahuddin, 2015).

Initial evidence from the introduction of ELPSA framework in Indonesia has indicated that the framework has great promise in enhancing the quality of teaching and learning in mathematics classrooms (Lowrie & Patahuddin, 2015).  Genuine artefacts are effectively utilised in both the pictorial and application phases of the ELPSA framework.