This working group continues to develop a research program on the practice of launching mathematical tasks and its resulting impact on learners. Our research agenda contains two strands of inquiry exploring (1) theory and framework building concerning effective launches and (2) empirical examination of the link between launching and opportunities…

In this article, we present the first results of the project OPEN-MATH. The research project aims at acknowledging the need for learning environments with differentiation strategies for all. We developed a model for inclusive mathematics learning, based on the Theory of Objectification and a broad idea of differentiation realized through Open…

A transition from "doer" to "teacher" for prospective teachers requires them to reorient from thinking about how they do mathematics to engaging with students and their work, understanding student representations, and planning instruction accordingly. To scaffold a transition, we developed a five-step mathematics as teacher…

Supporting students' mathematical reasoning is an important goal of mathematics instruction, but can be challenging for many teachers .We report the results of a study aimed at better understanding and identifying the ways in which teachers support student reasoning when provided with conceptually rich tasks. This study resulted in the Teacher…

In this paper we consider how mathematics instruction that values, attends to, and builds on students' mathematical ideas is realized through discourse. We describe interactions that build on students' thinking and in which students help to determine the direction of mathematics lessons as responsive. Using a framework we developed to characterize…

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…

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 this paper we focus on variation of the design and the implementation of a specific task during three mathematics lessons in the 8th grade in a learning study (Marton & Tsui, 2004; Runesson, 2008). The theme of the lesson was division, with a denominator between 0 and 1. The teachers wanted their students to understand that when dividing…

In this article, the author describes the Launch-Explore-Summarize teaching model which provides a way to structure how students participated in tasks. Shifting the structure of lessons helped the author foster her desired mathematical environment. This approach to teaching was different for her in that it recommended giving students very little…

Research Findings: The present study involved using a questionnaire to investigate the mathematics teaching practices of 74 U.S. and 67 Chinese early childhood teachers. Quantitative and qualitative analyses yielded several key findings. First, U.S. teachers are less intentional in mathematics teaching than their Chinese counterparts.…

While there are many considerations for effective mathematics teachers, one key factor is the development of a classroom culture that supports the desired form of learning. In examining the opportunities and constraints associated with posing challenging tasks, we are exploring ways that teachers might influence classroom culture positively. The…

Research in the field of math education continues to press teachers guide instruction based on students' needs and contributions, focusing on student learning through facilitation of whole-group discussions. This dissertation presents the findings of a qualitative study of two elementary teachers managing such "ambitious" teaching practices across…

The Anthropological Theory of Didactics describes mathematical activity in terms of "mathematical organisations" or "praxeologies" and considers the teacher as the "director of the didactic process" the students carry out, a process that is structured along six dimensions or "didactic moments." This paper…

The spiral approach has long been used by curriculum designers to deepen students' knowledge of scientific and mathematical concepts and to bring students to higher levels of abstraction. The benefits of a spiral approach, however, can also be extended to teacher education. This paper describes a spiral activity employed by the "Kidumatica"…

In this paper, we describe the skeleton of two teaching units, based on a Model for teaching mathematics, Context Orientated Teaching (COT). The first teaching unit concerns the proof of a mathematical proposition, while the second one concerns the solution of an open problem. Both are taught in the 10th grade, under the specific conditions of the…