During the past weekend (June 22-23, 2013), it was held the 38th Research Presentation Meeting of the Japan Academic Society of Mathematics Education (JASME) at Kagawa University, Saiwai-cho Campus, in Takamatsu City, Kagawa Prefecture. This conference was a great opportunity for all the participants to give and attend presentations and lectures about current teaching and learning issues on mathematics education; to meet with old friends and colleagues, as well as with renowned Japanese researchers and mathematics educators; and to eat the delicious udon, the food product because of which Kagawa Prefecture is famous country-wide. Despite the aforementioned reasons to emphasize the importance of this conference, I think that the greatest highlight for all the participants was a sad one: this meeting was the last one with Dr. Hideki Iwasaki serving as President of JASME. Dr. Iwasaki announced his retirement as acting president during the Opening Ceremony of this Research Presentation Meeting, with a very emotional speech. Immediately afterwards, the election of the new president of JASME occurred, resulting in the election of Professor Atsumi Ueda, from Hiroshima University. In his first speech as President of JASME, Professor Ueda expressed his heartfelt appreciation and deep gratitude for all the many significant accomplishments achieved for JASME during Dr. Iwasaki’s eight-year tenure as JASME president and leader. Moreover, Dr. Iwasaki was in charge of the plenary lecture at the closing ceremony, which was entitled “The Future of Mathematics Education Research” (これからの数学教育研究).
Our academic supervisor, Professor Takuya
Baba, and seven of our current lab members, attended to the 38th Research
Presentation Meeting of the JASME, with five of the lab members making
presentations this time. On Saturday 22, Mitsue Arai made a presentation
entitled “Concepts of Geometrical Figures and
Difficulties held by Lower Primary School Students in the Philippines” (フィリピンにおける低中学年児童がもつ図形概念と困難性); Masato Kosaka
made a presentation entitled “Research on
Functional Thinking in Science and Mathematics” (理科と数学における関数的考え方について); Koji Watanabe made a
presentation entitled “Research on the
relation between Mathematics and Reading Achievement in Southeastern African Countries: Through a
Secondary Analysis of SACMEQ Ⅱ and Ⅲ” (東南部アフリカ諸国における数学と読解力の関連性について: SACMEQ Ⅱ・Ⅲの二次分析を通じて); Gabriel Mwanza made a presentation entitled “Analysis of the Upper Primary Level Mathematics in Zambia from the
Perspective of Alignment”; and Orlando
González made a presentation entitled “A Framework for
Assessing Statistical Knowledge for Teaching held by Middle and High School
Mathematics Teachers (III): Focusing on Variability-related Concepts” (中等数学科教員の「教えるための統計的知識」に関する評価枠組み（III）：「ばらつき」に関連した概念に焦点を当てて). Our lab delegation in this Research Presentation Meeting was
completed by Akira Sakayori and Tatsuya Higashi.
In addition, we also had the chance to meet
during the weekend with former members of our lab, such as Chikara Kinone (now
a professor at Miyazaki University), Toyomi Uchida (now a professor at
Kagoshima Women's College), and Nagisa Nakawa (née Shibuya, now a professor at
Tokyo Future University, who also made a presentation entitled “Characteristics of ‘The Little Book of
Numbers’ for Pre-school Education (1): Focusing on the Study of Cards” - 就学前教育のための『小さな数の本（Das Kleine Zahlenbuch）』の特徴（１）:カードに焦点を当てた考察).
As I mentioned before, participating in
this meeting offered to all of us a series of unique opportunities. One of them
was to meet the very kind, active and energetic group of students from the
Faculty of Education of Kagawa University, who served as supporting staff
during all the conference. They were always willing to help and very
supportive. Thanks to them, as well as to the hard work of Professors Kimie
Kazama and Junichi Hasegawa, the 38th Research Presentation Meeting of the
JASME was a great success.
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