Suggests that contexts may be useful in mathematics instruction in relation to learning transfer and that the factors that determine whether a context is useful are complex. Discusses the context effect, learning in context, how well students identify with tasks taken out of an adult world, and the effects of ethnomathematics. (MDH)

Didactic transposition theory asserts that bodies of knowledge are designed not to be taught but to be used. Discusses didactic transposition, the transposition of knowledge regarded as a tool to be used to knowledge as something to be learned in mathematics textbooks. (14 references) (MDH)

Presents the reactions of a mathematics educator and a mathematician to a seven-year-old student's response for finding square numbers. Reflects on the mathematician's focus on the mathematics of the problem and the mathematics educator's focus on the student's systematic way of working, and discusses the common focus of student creativity. (MDH)