Southern Cross University (SCU) educators and local teachers have developed a five-lesson instructional sequence built around fluke identification as a way of resolving the question: How fast do humpback whales travel up the east coast of Australia?

This article describes part of a study in which researchers designed lesson sequences based around using a string number line to help teachers support children's development of relative thinking and understanding of linear scale. In the first year of the study, eight teachers of Years 3-5 participated in four one-day professional development…

The following outlines the rationale and structure of a professional learning initiative that seeks to explore teachers' ways of engaging students more actively in building mathematical connections for themselves. An example of one of the suggested experiences is presented.

Learning the sequence of number words in English up to 30 is not a simple process. In NSW government schools taking part in "Early Action for Success," over 800 students in each of the first 3 years of school were assessed every 5 weeks over the school year to determine the highest correct oral count they could produce. Rather than…

As an alternative to looking solely at linear functions, a three-lesson learning progression developed for Year 6 students that incorporates triangular numbers to develop children's algebraic thinking is described and evaluated.

The findings discussed here are a small part of a larger study entitled, "Encouraging Persistence Maintaining Challenge". The paper reports five teachers' observations of the implementation of a task which was new to them. The teachers were asked to identify aspects of the task which they perceived as challenging for the Year 6 students.…

Find out how to use photographic images to support the conceptual development of proportional thinking. This paper provides insight into a sequenced activity that promotes student engagement and makes links to familiar and unfamiliar contexts.

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.