In this article, the author describes how to help develop students' conceptual understanding of fractions through the tactical card-based game Nearest to One. Nearest to One promotes number-sense based strategies for comparing fractions, such as benchmarking (e.g., Is the fraction greater or less than one-half?) and building to the next whole,…

In this article the authors overview how the recently revised (version 9) Australian Curriculum (Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority, 2022) and student difficulties with fractions relate to five developmental Fraction Schemes developed from multiple research projects in the literature. The article shares research findings from…

The importance of mathematical reasoning is unquestioned and providing opportunities for students to become involved in mathematical reasoning is paramount. The open-ended tasks presented incorporate mathematical content explored through the contexts of problem solving and reasoning. This article presents a number of simple tasks that may be…

Gap reasoning is an inappropriate strategy for comparing fractions. In this article, Patrick Sullivan and Joann Barnett look at the persistence of this misconception amongst students and the insights teachers can draw about students' reasoning.

Productive struggle leads to productive classrooms where students work on complex problems, are encouraged to take risks, can struggle and fail yet still feel good about working on hard problems (Boaler, 2016). Teachers can foster a classroom culture that values and promotes productive struggle by providing students with challenging tasks. These…

The use of enabling and extending prompts allows tasks to be both accessible and challenging within a classroom. This article provides an example of how to use enabling and extending prompts effectively when employing a challenging task in Year 2.