Educational assessment consists of two aspects. First, the "size" of the learning that has occurred in which summative assessment of learning aims to measure. Second, the "quality" of learning, which is better situated in the classroom, where teachers make judgements on a day-to-day basis about what their students know and can do. This kind of…

Good questioning techniques have long been regarded as a fundamental tool of effective teachers and research has found that "differences in students' thinking and reasoning could be attributed to the type of questions that teachers asked" (Wood, 2002). Past research shows that 93% of teacher questions were "lower order" knowledge-based questions…

As a result of conversations with students, previous teaching experiences, and through reading relevant literature, this author was aware that many students struggle with understanding fraction concepts. In particular, she knew that students had difficulty with reading, renaming, ordering, interpreting, and applying common fractions, fraction…

Combating the perception of many adults and children that mathematics is difficult, irrelevant and not for them is a major task for teachers and one that is not easily achieved. Attempts to place mathematics in real-life situations or to use contexts to alleviate the apparent separation of school mathematics and out-of-school mathematics have been…

In this article, the author uses a range of simple materials to facilitate students' understandings of measurement concepts. The six activities presented are essentially about looking at different configurations of a given volume. (Contains 6 figures.)

Understanding the equivalence in relation to fractions is centrally important. Students need many experiences of flexibly combining simple fractions in ways that reinforce equivalences among them. This article presents several ideas that are contributed by a range of people. They are designed to help students to develop understandings of…

There are many classroom activities that can be implemented with primary students that introduce and immerse them in ratio investigations. Some enjoyable tasks include finding the ratio of tongue rollers to non-tongue rollers in the classroom; left-hand dominant to right-hand dominant; right-thumb over left-thumb when clasping the hands to…

According to the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) (1989, 2000), students at all levels should be exposed to geometry and measurement topics. Standards documents have identified the importance of primary school students selecting appropriate units for measurements in one- and two-dimensional space (NCTM 1989, 2000). This paper…

Invented by English mathematician and pedagogist, Caleb Gattegno (1911-1988), the geoboard was designed as a manipulative tool for teaching primary geometry in schools (Williams, 1999). Traditionally made out of plywood and nails, geoboards today are usually made out of plastic and come in a variety of different sizes and colours. Rubber bands are…

The impact of written and printed texts on the geometry curriculum has a very long history. Static diagrams, static definitions, and static proofs have dominated the classrooms for centuries. Geometry is about shape and space, and about the relationships between shapes in space. Movement is a key aspect of those relationships, but movement cannot…

As part of the project titled "Hands-On Heads-On: The Effective Use of Manipulatives Both Virtual and Physical" being undertaken at Edith Cowan University, there was an investigation into the use of virtual manipulatives and the interactive whiteboard (IWB). Virtual manipulatives may be defined as a virtual representation of a physical…

Developing strategies for engaging mathematics activities is always a challenge. Teachers seek out new resources and online activities to excite students and support their learning. Mathematics through Movement offers an active learning strategy requiring few resources, and a bit of imagination, to achieve a variety of outcomes across mathematics…

Measurement is a mathematics skill students encounter often in their daily lives. The act of measuring involves the use of concrete, hands-on materials that students find engaging and appealing. According to Martinie (2004), the best way to teach measurement "is to find or create situations in which students need to measure and let them experience…

For years, students have become frustrated with the task of learning to tell time, and teachers have become frustrated at not fully understanding why this task is such a difficult one . The concepts of time include point of time ("measured" or labelled by clocks, and calendars), and durations (measuring elapsed time)--abstract ideas about the…

The fortunes of chance and data have fluctuated in the mathematics curriculum in Australia since their emergence in the National Statement in the early 1990s. Their appearance in Australia followed closely on similar moves in the United States. In both countries the topics, taken together, were given a section status equal to other areas of the…