For students to engage in mathematical thinking, a greater emphasis is needed on the expectations of students, by themselves and others, as active listeners and explainers. As student responsibility for mathematical thinking and participation increases, the roles of the teacher and learner change. A qualitative study of changing classroom…

Foundation and Year 1/2 teachers at Saint Martin de Porres Primary School, a Catholic School in Laverton, Melbourne have been collaborating with a team of researchers from Monash University on a four-year project led by Professor Peter Sullivan and colleagues. The teachers have been trialling and implementing a series of lesson sequences as part…

This article presents the journey taken by staff at St. Patrick's Primary School in Kilmore to implement a consistent approach to the teaching of mathematics, using an instructional model to support student learning through structured inquiry pedagogies.

Self-efficacy has been associated with benefits to everyday life such as resilience to stress and adversity, healthy behaviours, improved performance, and academic achievement. Research into self-efficacy development is scarce in early childhood, yet self-efficacy is associated with numerous skills and competencies taught in the early years of…

The National Quality Framework is used across Australia to drive quality improvement in early childhood settings. Unique to Western Australia, the National Quality Standard is also used in schools to improve quality in classrooms up to Year two (seven to eight years). However, the literature suggests the National Quality Standard is too broad with…

This project uses participatory inquiry methods with Year 2/3 students at Glenelg Primary School in Adelaide, Australia, to address a student-identified desire to learn outside more often. Through a seven-week inquiry, students selected areas around the school to explore, collected and analysed existing plant data, and delivered garden plans. The…

The ability to write is central to students' success at school and beyond, and key to this success is the design and implementation of classroom learning experiences. Teachers' writing lessons are informed by their beliefs about learning, their writing content knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge. This knowledge supports their…

The Australian government funded the West Australian project 'Reporting Values to Parents' as part of 'The Values in Action Schools Project' (2009). The two aims of the qualitative study were to develop a common values language supported by observable behaviours and an appreciation that values education is fundamental to schooling. Teachers used…

This paper examines the outcomes of a 4-year implementation of a mathematics program (Representations, oral language and engagement in Mathematics: RoleM) for Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island students' learning of mathematics across the first 4 years of primary school (Foundation--Year 3). It specifically aims to determine how…

Background: On an annual basis, students across Australia in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 are assessed on their literacy and numeracy skills via the National Assessment Program -- Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN), with the student performance data used for purposes including national accountability. Purpose: Against this backdrop of large-scale national…

Engaging students in a challenging (cognitively demanding) task and launching a mathematics lesson with a task before instruction are two characteristics of a reform-oriented approach to mathematics instruction often considered together. The authors systematically contrasted teaching with challenging tasks using a task-first lesson structure with…

In this article the authors provide an overview of the Interdisciplinary Mathematics and Science project conducted in Grades 1 to 6 in four Australian schools. The project teachers implemented an enquiry-based pedagogical model through 12 interrelated topics. This paper details how a range of mathematics and science concepts can be effectively…

The idea of variation is a foundation of statistical reasoning, and many curriculum documents, including the "Australian Curriculum", include variation in the learning required for the primary years. In this paper, we consider the design of activities that can exemplify the idea of variation for young students and investigate how…

Professional learning that includes coaching is an effective method of supporting teachers to make changes to their teaching practice. This article provides an overview of the initial in-situ professional learning and coaching in a primary school in Western Sydney facilitated by a Mathematics Teaching Educator. In this article I present the…

The current paper overviews a nine-month PhD study that investigated the impact of learning mathematics through sequences of challenging tasks on the mathematical competence and attitudes of Year 2 students (n = 59). Adopting a Self-Determination Theory lens, a pragmatist paradigm and a mixed-method design, the study found that at all levels of…