Metacognition supports students in successfully working through struggle by equipping them with the tools to maintain an awareness of what they are doing and to change directions when needed to overcome obstacles. Thus, it is of little surprise that effective problem solvers spend a significant amount of time analyzing tasks relative to the amount…

The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM), in 2024, released a position statement on the intersection of culture and mathematics that includes the imperative to recognize mathematics as a "human endeavor and a creative pursuit" (para. 1). To accomplish such a large and complex goal, educators will need a multi-pronged…

This paper is a practical how-to guide to help you start using active learning or to have greater success and more fun with it. We categorize active learning techniques as Think, Pair, Share, Composite, Group, Move, or Lead and discuss how to implement activities in each category, along with advice on creating engaging, effective, and equitable…

On the one hand, mathematical software is ubiquitous in mathematics education. On the other hand, word problems are an important part of the curriculum, and they often require modelling skills. This is especially true with optimisation and extrema problems proposed to high school and undergraduate students. We propose two activities around extrema…

We describe the components and implementation of an activity for multivariable calculus featuring applications to the field of chemistry. This activity focuses on the isobaric thermal expansion coefficient found using partial differentiation of the volume of an ideal gas with respect to temperature as pressure is held constant. Broader goals of…

Area should be experienced, not simply calculated. This task invites students to physically experience areas and the spatial relationships between them, as well as their own community.

In a recent article, Crider recommends ending a course with a memorable learning experience, called an epic finale, instead of a final exam. Here, we give the details of epic finales given in four mathematics courses: Discrete Mathematics, Information and Coding Theory, Real Analysis, and Complex Analysis. We describe how to reconfigure a course…

Undergraduate mathematics instructors are called by many current standards to promote prospective teachers' learning of geometry from a transformation perspective, marking a change from previous standards. The novelty of this situation means it is unclear what is involved in undergraduate learning and teaching of geometry from a transformation…

Mathematical modeling and applications are an important part of curriculum and considered to be important for students' current and future lives. In this contribution, we focus on mathematical modeling from a cognitive prospective. Following embedding the cognitive perspective within the discourse of mathematical modeling, we describe some of the…

Open tasks are mathematical problems "that promote mathematical reasoning and problem solving and allow multiple entry points and varied solution strategies" (National Council of Teachers of Mathematics [NCTM], 2014, p. 17). Open tasks can have more than one right answer, solution, or outcome. Facilitation of open tasks offers learning…

Even before the release of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM)'s Principles to Actions (2014), teachers paid significant attention to mathematics tasks based on their positive influence on student learning (Doyle, 1988; Kazemi, 1998; NCTM, 1989, 2000). Over the last almost quarter century, we have learned a lot about high-level…

This paper reports on the design, implementation, and evaluation processes of an activity that focused on the comparison meaning of the subtraction of integers and included the number line model as the primary representation. Finding the answer and determining the sign of the answer in the subtraction questions were targeted as the learning…

In this paper duality between real world phenomenon and mathematics will be discussed. This duality exists for many years which considerably remarked in the history of mathematics curriculum. One of the good potential for filling the gap between real world phenomenon and mathematical ideas would be modelling tasks which require performing the…

A Q-sort involves sorting a set of statements about a topic onto a grid that represents a continuum. It is one structured yet flexible method that teachers can use to foster critical reflection. This article provides a ready-to-use Q-sort activity designed to support individual reflection on beliefs about equitable mathematics instruction. By…

In this article, the authors share their favorite "Construct It!" activity, which focuses on rate of change and functions. The initial approach to instruction was procedural in nature and focused on making use of formulas. Specifically, after modeling how to find the slope of the line given two points and use it to solve for the…