As part of a project exploring various aspects of teachers' choice and use of challenging mathematics tasks, we sought some responses from students on their preferences for the difficulty of tasks on which they might work and also on the ways of working. Despite the common finding that teachers are reluctant to pose challenges to their students…

As part of a project that is examining how to support teachers in the use of challenging tasks and those teacher actions that encourage students to persist, we focused on the activities of students and teachers during seatwork. We describe the nature of teacher interactions with students, student behaviours when working on challenging tasks, and…

This article promotes the use of mathematically appropriate, engaging and challenging tasks to support learning that is worthwhile. The authors share insights from a three-lesson design experiment and the three tasks along with the results from their implementation are explored.

In recent years, the mathematics education research community has given increased focus to the use of cognitively demanding, challenging tasks and the demands placed on students and teachers by their use. In particular, there is evidence that a major issue is students' lack of persistence when working on such tasks. In this article, we report on…