Functions are an essential concept in mathematics. The studies that have examined functions in advanced contexts have primarily focused on students' reasoning about specific types of functions (such as binary operations and isomorphisms) but not on the core characteristics of well-definedness and everywhere-definedness. Here, we report on a study…

Thinking probabilistically is an essential part of thinking statistically, and the probability learning objectives that this article focuses on are those that are important in the underpinning of statistics and statistical models. Like mathematical statistics, probability can be considered purely from a mathematical viewpoint, but the focus here…

This paper aims to shed light on an overlooked but essential aspect of informal reasoning and its radical implication to mathematics education research: Decentralising mathematics. We start to problematise that previous studies on informal reasoning implicitly overfocus on what students infer. Based on Walton's distinction between reasoning and…

This paper reports on a two-part investigation into how students think about and use summation (sigma) notation. During an instructional design experiment, two participating students struggled with this notation, but also reasoned about it in creative ways. This motivated a follow-up study in which we administered a free-response three-item survey…

Mathematics education research has been aware that calculus students can draw on single definite integrals as a model to compute areas (SImA), without minding whether the function changes its sign in the assigned interval. In this study, I take conceptual and empirical steps to understand this phenomenon in more depth. Building on Fischbein's…

Knowing functions and functional thinking have recently moved from just knowledge for older students to incorporating younger students, and functional thinking has been identified as one of the core competencies for algebra. Although it is significant for mathematical understanding, there is no unified view of functional thinking and how different…

Learning standards such as the "Common Core State Standards for Mathematics" [CCSSM] (NGA Center & CCSSO, 2010) advocate that we develop students' algebraic thinking "beginning in kindergarten." Such a tall order requires innovative approaches that re-imagine what teaching and learning mathematics means for the elementary…

Ben Zunica describes a lesson in which computational thinking has been successful in assisting students to understand the process of simplifying surds. The strengths and limitations of this approach are discussed. The author concludes that computational thinking can assist in solidifying understanding of a range of mathematical processes for…

The theoretical reflection on the nature of school algebra and the development of algebraic thinking from the first educational levels is a relevant topic in mathematics education. In this paper, we first summarize and clarify the positions held on this topic by two theoretical frameworks: the Theory of Objectification and the Onto-semiotic…

The ideas of measurement and measurement comparisons (e.g., fractions, ratios, quotients) are introduced to students in elementary school. However, studies report that students of all ages have difficulty comparing two quantities in terms of their relative size. Students often understand fractions such as 3/7 as part-whole relationships or…

The development of the mathematical concept of the infinite, through the reflections that arise from personal notions and perceptions and the analysis of some ideas of Galileo and Cantor, invites us to investigate the relationship between intuition and formalization for the understanding of the said concept. This paper aims to observe and describe…

Different types of reasoning, such as intuitive, inductive, and deductive, are used in the generalization of figural patterns, as an important part of patterns in school mathematics. It is difficult to demarcate the constructive patterns where the regularity observed in the first few sentences is generalizable to the other sentences and each…

This paper combines recent developments in theories of knowledge (complex dynamic systems), technologies (embodied interactions), and research tools (multimodal data collection and analysis) to offer new insights into how conceptual mathematical understanding can emerge. A complex dynamic system view models mathematics learning in terms of a…

This paper is part of broader research being conducted in the area of algebraic thinking in primary education. Our general research objective was to identify and describe generalization of a 2nd grade student (aged 7-8). Specifically, we focused on the transition from arithmetic to algebraic generalization. The notion of structure and its…

The many studies with coin-tossing tasks in literature show that the concept of randomness is challenging for adults as well as children. Systematic errors observed in coin-tossing tasks are often related to the representativeness heuristic, which refers to a mental shortcut that is used to judge randomness by evaluating how well a set of random…