It is frequently surprising to new teachers (and even those with experience) when they find that not only do some children need to recount the group they have just counted to be assured of the total but also that this need seems to be resistant to intervention. Although moving from "counting-all" to "count-on" is sometimes…

Mathematical models are conceptual processes that use mathematics to describe, explain, and/or predict the behaviour of complex systems. This article is written for teachers of mathematics in the junior secondary years (including out-of-field teachers of mathematics) who may be unfamiliar with mathematical modelling, to explain the steps involved…

This discussion-based lesson is designed to support Year 6 students in their initial understanding of using letters to represent numbers, expressions, and equations in algebra. The three level framework is designed for: (1) making thinking explicit, (2) exploring each other's solutions, and (3) developing new mathematical insights. In each level…

Many fraction activities rely on the use of area models for developing partitioning skills. These models, however, are limited in their ability to assist students to visualise a fraction of an object when the whole changes. This article describes a fraction modelling activity that requires the transfer of water from one container to another. The…

In this article, Lorraine Jacob and Joanne Mulligan discuss how arrays can be used to promote students' early learning in relation to multiplication and division. They provide examples of activities that can be used from Foundation to Year 5.

The Encouraging Persistence Maintaining Challenge (EMPC) Project has been working with secondary teachers in Melbourne as they seek to build persistence in students, during work on challenging mathematics tasks. The authors have developed sequences of tasks in various topic areas for Years 7 and 8, which require students to connect different…

If you like taking your mathematics lessons outdoors then you will enjoy this issue's technology column! Maria Northcote and her students suggest a variety of different technologies and mathematical explorations that can be used in conjunction with a parachute.

Within the "Australian Curriculum: Mathematics" the Understanding proficiency strand states, "Students build understanding when they connect related ideas, when they represent concepts in different ways, when they identify commonalities and differences between aspects of content, when they describe their thinking mathematically and…

There is a correlation between language proficiency and achievement in mathematics (Riordain & O'Donoghue, 2009), and this is particularly evident for children who speak English as an additional language or dialect. More effort needs to be made in mathematics classrooms to develop cognitive competencies, including the ability to decode and…

In providing a continued focus on tasks and activities that help to illustrate key ideas embedded in the new Australian Curriculum, this issue the authors focus, on Geometry in the Measurement and Geometry strand with strong links for an integrated focus on the Statistics and Probability strand. The small unit of work on the sorting and…

Humor has been promoted as a teaching tool that enhances student engagement and learning. The present report traces the pathway from research to practice by reflecting upon various ways to incorporate humor into the face-to-face teaching of statistics. The use of humor in an introductory university statistics course was evaluated via interviews…

Measurement is a mathematics skill students encounter often in their daily lives. The act of measuring involves the use of concrete, hands-on materials that students find engaging and appealing. According to Martinie (2004), the best way to teach measurement "is to find or create situations in which students need to measure and let them…

There are many classroom activities that can be implemented with primary students that introduce and immerse them in ratio investigations. Some enjoyable tasks include finding the ratio of tongue rollers to non-tongue rollers in the classroom; left-hand dominant to right-hand dominant; right-thumb over left-thumb when clasping the hands to…

Developing strategies for engaging mathematics activities is always a challenge. Teachers seek out new resources and online activities to excite students and support their learning. Mathematics through Movement offers an active learning strategy requiring few resources, and a bit of imagination, to achieve a variety of outcomes across mathematics…

The concept of a function is fundamental to virtually every aspect of mathematics and every branch of quantitative science. Presently this type of thinking is carolled at the secondary level, and yet it has many benefits for deepening the understanding of early arithmetic. This is particularly so in the way that operations can be considered as…