There are five words that are critical to an appreciation of what is "typical" in data sets that students encounter across the middle school years. The first three words--mean, median and mode--are nouns that define measures of typicality in data sets. The next two words--categorical and numerical--are adjectives that describe the types…

Education professionals, regardless of their specialist area, are broadly aware of the importance of numeracy. Internationally, definitions of numeracy (known elsewhere as mathematical literacy or quantitative reasoning), describe "an individual's capacity to formulate, employ and interpret mathematics in a variety of contexts... reasoning…

Some people recognize a palindrome when they see one, however fewer realize that a palindrome is a special case of a pattern and that these patterns are all around. Palindromes frequently occur in names, both of vehicles and people, and in music. The traditional mathematical curriculum has often left palindromes out of the common vernacular. Where…

This article describes a project that focuses on how a Society and Environment unit could develop required numeracy. This is more of an integrated unit organised around a theme rather than a Society and Environment unit that required specific aspects of numeracy. Suggested data sources for examining students numeracy development included (1) a…

The language of mathematics is unique and complex. One feature of the mathematical register is the use of symbols and abbreviations. Whilst it may be possible for a student to think mathematically in the absence of symbols, the written communication of mathematical ideas cannot be achieved concisely without the use of mathematical symbols.…

This article describes a project that focuses on numeracy in secondary school mathematics. During the course of the project a teacher had the chance to develop and trial new tasks and styles of teaching and learning numeracy. She became increasingly comfortable with using more extended tasks for learning mathematics. However, she believes that it…

This article presents a lesson that focuses on numeracy. In the lesson, students were tasked to find the best path for a new expressway. The purpose of the activity was for students to gain an appreciation of the complexities associated with designing public infrastructure and to put into practice the mathematical skills. This article also…

This paper explores how a secondary school in western Sydney used educational research as an impetus to change its mathematical education culture over a three year period. Key changes occurred in four areas: leadership; pedagogy; structures for teaching and learning; and mathematical environments. These included increased professional…

This article describes a teacher's Maths lesson that focuses on numeracy in health and physical education learning area. In the lesson, the students were learning about Directed Numbers, something they often struggle with and a topic where the teacher finds it hard to explain using real life situations when using addition and subtraction. The…

Ten years ago, the author wrote a short piece entitled "Mathematics and numeracy--Is there a difference?". In mathematics, many put an emphasis on the content concepts and skills contained typically in strands such as Algebra, Number, Geometry, etc. Others argued that "mathematics" was about the "search for pattern" and that the key elements of…

The introduction of negative numbers should mean that mathematics can be twice as much fun, but unfortunately they are a source of confusion for many students. Difficulties occur in moving from intuitive understandings to formal mathematical representations of operations with negative and positive integers. This paper describes a series of…

In this article, the author clarifies the distinction between numeracy and mathematics and the implications of this distinction for teachers of mathematics. In doing so she has, of necessity, focused on one--albeit significant--high stakes assessment genre used on Australian students that purports to measure numeracy. It is essential that teachers…

In this paper, the author recommends that every teacher of mathematics should undertake an analysis using their own data. She further recommends that they reflect on the outcomes of their analysis and share it with colleagues. Teachers can look at an individual student's results, variations in results between student sub-groups in their classes,…

Numeracy may become a focus on the teaching and assessment of basic number skills. Such a focus on numeracy may de-emphasize the aim for numeracy, which is using mathematics in real contexts where the purpose of the activity is something other than just learning school mathematics. (Contains 11 references.) (ASK)

For over 30 years this author has been involved in the teaching and learning of mathematics and numeracy in Australian schools, teaching in high schools (Years 8-12) for more than 20 years at different school settings ranging from rural and remote to inner city, high socio-economic status schools to schools of students mostly from poorer, lower…