Two important pedagogical techniques for developing deeper mathematical understanding are to prove a given theorem in different ways and to unify the proofs of different theorems. Trigonometric angle sum and difference identities are introduced in Unit 2 of Specialist Mathematics in the Australian Curriculum (Australian Curriculum, Assessment and…

Two decades ago, in an award-winning paper, Dan Kennedy (1995) likened learning mathematics to climbing a tree, for which there was only one way to climb: up a large and solid trunk. In the limited time that is available, many students give up the climb, impede others, fall off the trunk, or fail to climb the tree sufficiently well. In the case of…

This paper being an extension of Bhattacharjee (2012) is very much relevant to Year 9 to Year 10A in the "Australian Curriculum: Mathematics". It also falls within the purview of class IX to class XII curriculum of Mathematics in India (Revised NCERT curriculum) for students aged 14-17 years. In Bhattacharjee (2012), the discovery of…

Trigonometry is an integral part of the draft for the Senior Secondary Australian National Curriculum for Mathematics, as it is a topic in Unit 2 of both Specialist Mathematics and Mathematics Methods, and a reviewing topic in Unit 1, Topic 3: Measurement and Geometry of General Mathematics. However, learning trigonometric ideas is difficult for…

In this article, the authors present a lesson whose goal is to utilise a scientific environment to immerse a trigonometry student in the process of mathematical modelling. The scientific environment utilised during this activity is a physics simulation called "Wave on a String" created by the PhET Interactive Simulations Project at…

Reports what real life contexts meant while teaching Year 11 Geometry and Trigonometry. Presents problems to support the teaching of a topic on vectors in three-dimensional space. Takes a critical look at five of the problems in view of students' responses to them. (ASK)