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Professor Tom Lowrie (born 15 December 1964) is Director of the Research Institute for Professional Practice, Learning and Education (RIPPLE) at Charles Sturt University (CSU), Australia. He is also a Professor of Education at CSU.

Career
Tom began his teaching career in 1986. He has taught in a number of primary school and university settings (including Australia, Canada, and the United States) over the past twenty years. His positions have included working as a primary school classroom teacher, teaching mathematics education and research method courses to undergraduate and postgraduate students at CSU, and working with classroom teachers on curriculum frameworks. He received his PhD in 1996 from the University of Newcastle (Australia).

Tom was appointed Director of RIPPLE in 2007. RIPPLE is a strategic research institute which investigates the nature of professional practice and its impact and influence on industry and other professional stakeholders and communities. As Director, Tom coordinates and supports the research activity of key researchers and doctoral students. He also manages the international collaborations of a network of researchers contributing to the understanding and application of knowledge about professional practice.

Research focus
Tom has an international research profile in the discipline area of mathematics education. A substantial body of his research is associated with the role and influence visual reasoning skills and communicative technologies have on learning. He also investigates the role and nature of graphics in mathematics assessment. He has received a number of grants from the Australian Research Council (ARC), amongst others.

Tom’s research has been disseminated in national and international periodicals and conference proceedings. His work has been communicated at conferences in Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, the United States, Singapore, Korea, China, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Greece, Indonesia, and The Netherlands. He has also been a keynote speaker at several national and international education conferences.

Graphical Languages in Mathematics
Two of Tom’s most well known studies are the ARC-funded projects: Graphical Languages in Mathematics (GLIM) [2008-11]; and Early Primary Graphical Languages in Mathematics (EPGLIM) [2009-11]—undertaken with Professor Carmel Diezmann, (Queensland University of Technology, Australia). Together, the research focused on children’s understanding of graphics in mathematics, specifically primary students aged 8 to 12 years. The aim of the research was to understand how children learn about general purpose graphical languages that are important in mathematics (such as graphs, diagrams, charts, tables, and maps). In this day and age, it is essential that all children have the skills to interpret the graphical languages that are such a large part of the mathematics curriculum. By monitoring the development of students’ knowledge of information graphics, an understanding was formed of how children ‘code-break’ the different types of graphics that they encounter in their everyday mathematics lessons.

Processing Mathematics Tasks
From 2013-15, Tom is undertaking a research project funded by the ARC on the processing of mathematics tasks. The project aims to better understand how students process mathematics tasks so the move toward digital assessment can be managed effectively within classrooms in order to promote assessment for learning.

Social and Geographic Location and its Impact on Mathematics Teaching and Learning
Tom holds an ARC grant (2012–14) with Professor Robyn Jorgensen (Griffith University, Australia), for a large-scale mathematics research project that aims to better understand the factors that impact on student learning in mathematics, specifically teachers’ practices in creating strong learning environments. The results of the study will help in understanding how social and geographic location may impact on mathematics teaching and learning.

Other research contributions
Tom was co-editor of the 2012 Mathematics Education Research Group of Australasia (MERGA) 4-yearly review of mathematics education research in Australasia. He was also Secretary of MERGA for five years leading up to 2004. From 2002-03, Tom was co-editor of the journal, Australian Primary Mathematics Classroom. Over the last ten years, he has been a journal referee for a number of national and international periodicals in the field of education.

Awards
In 2011, Tom received the Janet Duffin Award from the British Society for Research into Learning Mathematics. This award is made annually to the author of the paper judged by the Editors, Editorial Board and International Advisory Board, to be the most outstanding contribution to the journal, Research in Mathematics Education. In 2005, he won the CSU Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Research Excellence, and also in 2005, was nominated an Expert Assessor of International Standing by the ARC.

Categories
Category:1964 births

Category:Living people

Category:Education academics

Category:Australian academics

Category:Mathematics education

Category:Charles Sturt University