Introduction: As technology progresses, individuals will be increasingly expected to solve digital tasks. At the same time, many worry that a high use of connected devices will reduce young people's ability to perform with accuracy long cognitively challenging tasks online. Methods: We examine whether 15-year-old students' ability to accurately…

In his work leading professional development, Peter Klosterman found that teachers specifically asked for help teaching optimisation more effectively. To address challenges students often experience solving optimisation problems, he explains useful pedagogical strategies to support the teaching of optimisation and student learning in this topic.

In this 21st century context, communities and nations cannot afford to lose the talents of any young people. Shifts in thinking and practices are needed: from one-dimensional definitions to varied talents and 21st century skills of creativity, critical thinking, collaboration, and communication; from identification to assessment; from the goal of…

Fluency is an important aspect of mathematics learning and plays a major role in developing proficiency as students are required to use skills and apply knowledge. This paper draws upon findings from a large project that aimed to explore primary students' mathematical fluency. Data from 160 primary students (K-6) from a NSW Departmental school…

The Queensland Certificate of Education (QCE) system is Queensland's senior school qualification. To support the introduction of the system in 2019, existing senior syllabuses were redeveloped and a new senior assessment model was established, this included the implementation of a mandatory high-stakes assessment task, the Problem-solving and…

Understanding spatial reasoning is important to success in mathematics. This article shows how the proficiency strands in the "Australian Curriculum: Mathematics" provide the tools needed for effective teaching and learning of spatial thinking.

In this research, we examined how 200 students in seventh grade (around 12 years old) solved simple addition problems. A cluster approach revealed that less than half of the cohort displayed proficiency with simple addition: 35% predominantly used min-counting and were accurate, and 16% frequently made min-counting errors. Students who frequently…

This study explored the potential of a rich assessment task to reveal students' multiplicative thinking in respect to a hypothetical learning trajectory. Thirty pairs of students in grades 5 and 6 attempted the task. Twenty-two pairs applied multiplicative structure to find the number of items in arrays. However counting and computational errors…

Analysis of mathematical notations must consider both syntactical aspects of symbols and the underpinning mathematical concept(s) conveyed. We argue that the construct of "syntax template" provides a theoretical framework to analyse undergraduate mathematics students' written solutions, where we have identified several types of…

Senior secondary mathematics students who develop conceptual understanding that moves them beyond "rules without reasons" to connections between related concepts are in a strong place to tackle the more difficult mathematics application problems. Current research is examining how the use of challenging tasks at different levels of…

This study aimed to develop a survey instrument to measure student attitudes towards mathematics teaching-learning processes that is appropriate for the Indonesian context. This study consisted of two phases: Phase 1 (n = 320) was a pilot study to assess the suitability of the instrument items for Indonesian students. Phase 2 (n = 1001) was…

In this study we investigated how 200 students in seventh grade (mean age = 12.38 years) solved simple addition problems and if the way they performed simple addition was related to their achievement in mathematics. Four performance groups were identified: proficient, almost proficient, inaccurate min counting and accurate min counting. More than…

This case-study explores the impact of a 12 week in-class intervention designed to encourage creativity, inquiry and exploration as a normal and expected part of mathematics lessons, with a particular focus on supporting the learning of highly capable and gifted students. Fred is a mathematically highly capable grade five student whose personal…

Many people are discussing the issues surrounding mathematics at all levels of education. Politicians, parents, students, universities, education departments all have a view about what the problem is and all have ideas about what should happen. This article represents a synthesis of the issues and implications of one of the problems evident in…

There are relatively few studies in Australia and South-East Asian region that combine investigating models of math growth trajectories with predictors such as reasoning ability and reading comprehension skills. Math achievement is one of the major components of overall academic achievement and it is important to determine what factors (especially…