The study of higher-level secondary mathematics is considered essential for national economic growth, competitiveness in research and innovation, and further education opportunities. Yet the reported trend within Australian secondary schools is that enrolments in higher-level mathematics are declining and have been in a state of decline for over a…

This paper focuses on using sociocultural theory to support a context-based approach to teaching mathematics. A goal of the research was to explore the opportunities-to-learn of using a context-based approach to enrich student engagement with mathematics. This paper focuses on the practice of one female secondary school teacher as expressed…

Learning to solve more challenging mathematics problems using multiple strategies has been promoted by research and is a feature of numerous curricula. Yet teachers have been found to be reluctant to incorporate these tasks into their lessons predicting resistance from students. This study examined 87 senior secondary students' reactions to a…

South Australian Secondary Mathematics teachers consider their testing parameters (duration and frequency) to be consistent with teachers elsewhere in the state, however, formal evidence is not available. A review of literature presented similar gaps in this evidence in other jurisdictions in Australia. The logic model that underpins the resource…

This paper reports on an evaluation of a distinctive university-school partnership program, Curriculum Bridges. Curriculum Bridges aims to develop the enthusiasm and capacity of students from disadvantaged schools in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). These objectives are sought by developing a theme in the…

Senior secondary mathematics students who develop conceptual understanding that moves them beyond "rules without reasons" to connections between related concepts are in a strong place to tackle the more difficult mathematics application problems. Current research is examining how the use of challenging tasks at different levels of…

This article explores the issues associated with developing ideas of informal inference and introduces the software package, TinkerPlots, as a tool to facilitate this development. The activities suggested in this article are intended for use with middle and secondary students (grades 6 to 10). The data and suggestions presented have arisen mainly…

This paper presents a research-based framework for analyzing and monitoring students' understanding of functions in equation form. The framework consists of "growth points" which describe "big ideas" of students' understanding of the concept. The data were collected from Grades 8, 9, and 10 students using a set of tasks…

Findings from a survey administered to large numbers of grade 7-10 students are presented in this paper. The focus is on the students' attitudes towards the use of computers for the learning of mathematics. Background information was also gathered which allowed the students' responses to be analysed by a range of equity factors--gender, ethnicity,…