Meeting of minds
[ Research Review 0307 : ]
By Lorraine Chiroiu
From her earliest career aspirations, Dr Gaye Williams had education in mind. With her sights initially set on educational psychology, Dr Williams now finds herself an esteemed academic, recognised locally and internationally for her innovative research on cognitive learning in maths. Dr Williams’ insights have provided educators with important new perspectives about learning, with implications for education settings around the globe; while her doctoral thesis has won a coveted national award for the best PhD in Australia. She credits her supervisor, Professor David Clarke, with a passion for research that has challenged and inspired her.
During her time at teachers’ college, Dr Williams, like many aspiring teachers, knew she wanted to work with young people and make a difference to their learning. As she began teaching she found herself drawn to those students who were unable to understand maths. “So many students had no opportunity to develop a love of maths,” she said.
Using what Dr Williams describes as a ‘let-them-think-it-through approach, with rigour and rationale’ she started to see some exceptional results amongst her students: in one instance two of her students were awarded the (Monash) Dean’s Prize in Science/Engineering (of 10 possible prizes). In 1994, Dr Williams was honoured with a National Excellence in Teaching award after being nominated by students and parents. Amongst the nominators was a student who had a distaste for maths in Year 11, but subsequently ‘blossomed’ as her student in Year 12, and went on to study microbiological sciences.
Commencing her Masters in Education at the University of Melbourne, Dr Williams worked under the supervision of Professor Clarke, who she says ‘elicited deep thinking’ from her and treated her opinion and input as valuable right from the start. “David was doing in research what I was doing in the classroom and the exchange of ideas was wonderful,” she said, describing how their styles complemented each other.
This mutual respect and understanding led to an invitation from Professor Clarke to join the ‘Learners’ Perspective Study’, focussing on her own research in the context of the broader project. During this data collection, Dr Williams scrutinised how the individual learner interacted with the social context when facing complex mathematical problems. She discovered processes associated with creative thinking that were not reported in the literature. This can best be described as a ‘space to think’ where a student assembles resources so they can creatively use their own mind to overcome a problem. This became the basis of Dr Williams’ PhD thesis, which addressed how autonomy, spontaneity and optimism enabled insightful thinking in solving complex questions. The thesis, completed in the Faculty of Education, was awarded the 2006 Australian Association for Research in Education Award for Doctoral Research in Education. Her work contributes to knowledge on how students learn maths and is steadily being recognised as valuable for changing the way maths is taught in schools.
Of her work, Dr Williams says, “I intend my research to be pivotal in changing a mindset where so many students hate maths, because they cannot understand how to apply what is to them a meaningless set of fragmented rules.
“Without David I wouldn’t have reached the same depths in the research,” says Dr Williams. “His focus on rigour challenged me to justify everything. Once my work passed David’s scrutiny I knew I had nailed it.”
See www.edfac.unimelb.edu.au/ict/iccr/projects.html
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