Terence Mills introduces us to Keynsian probability and discusses its implications for teaching probability. The author considers it unlikely that Keynes's theory would replace how we teach probability, but argues that it may make us think more deeply about the use of terms such as chance and probability when used in our lessons.

This article reports on a study in which third-grade students (8-9 years) were given a degree of agency in conducting chance experiments and representing the outcomes. Students chose their own samples of 12 coloured counters, ensuring all colours were represented. They predicted the outcomes of item selection, tested their predictions, explained…

This article is motivated by the importance of developing statistically literate students. The authors present a selection of problems that could be used to motivate student interest in probability as well as providing additional depth to the curriculum when used alongside traditional resources. The solutions presented utilise natural frequencies…

The formula for the variance of a binomial distribution is both concise and elegant. However, it is often taught without reference to the underlying reasoning. That being the case, is it important, or useful, to understand why this formula can be used to calculate the requisite result? In this article, the author demonstrates a teaching sequence…

Mathematics curricula have traditionally focused on content knowledge, often in the form of a scope and sequence of increasingly difficult mathematics. The importance of using and applying mathematics is recognised in the current Australian Curriculum Mathematics (AC: M) as 'proficiencies' that are intended to be integrated with the content. There…

Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) is a powerful construct for examining the complexity of teacher knowledge. Together with teachers' moment-by-moment choices of action, it provides insight into teachers' knowledge and its influence on student learning. This paper investigates the PCK experienced by a senior secondary mathematics class during a…

This article reports on a pilot study that used concrete materials and TinkerPlots to support a Year 4 student's understanding of the big ideas of variation and expectation when investigating a random chance experiment using spinners.

The author looks at how apps, when carefully chosen and integrated into learning situations, can engage students in the learning experience. This article looks at how a teacher uses an app to assist his Year 2 class to learn about, and apply chance language, in a meaningful way.

In the Australian mathematics curriculum, Year 12 students (aged 16-17) are asked to solve conditional probability problems that involve the representation of the problem situation with two-way tables or three-dimensional diagrams and consider sampling procedures that result in different correct answers. In a small exploratory study, we…

By the time students reach the middle years they have experienced many chance activities based on dice. Common among these are rolling one die to explore the relationship of frequency and theoretical probability, and rolling two dice and summing the outcomes to consider their probabilities. Although dice may be considered overused by some, the…

For many scientists, researchers and students Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) simulation is an important and necessary tool to perform Bayesian analyses. The simulation is often presented as a mathematical algorithm and then translated into an appropriate computer program. However, this can result in overlooking the fundamental and deeper…

This article by Elizabeth Reeve and Kim Beswick illustrates how primary children may engage with the Statistics and Probability content contained in the Australian Curriculum. Technology has opened up many possibilities for young children to engage with statistics. In the process the children learned a great deal more than just mathematics.

When hoping to initiate or sustain students' interest in mathematics teachers should always consider relevance, relevance to students' lives and in the middle and later years of instruction in high school and university, accessibility. A topic such as the mathematics behind networks science, more specifically scale-free graphs, is up-to-date,…

This research study investigates how pre-service teachers integrate statistical content, students' thinking, and pedagogy as they examine how 11- to 12-year olds develop mathematically. The findings provide insights into: a) how pre-service teachers identify some of the difficulties that students commonly have, and b) what pedagogical approaches…

Most people would agree that helping students learn new information is important; however, there are numerous methods for achieving this goal, and not all of them have been proven to be effective. One method with intuitive appeal and some empirical backing is prompting students to self-explain. A self-explanation can be defined as generating…