This article focuses on the unintended consequences of within-class ability grouping on primary students of mathematics. I review relevant research, including promising approaches to teaching in mixed ability settings. I then outline four ways in which these groupings are typically structured, discussing some of the issues that arise with each of…

Rich learning tasks embedded within a familiar context allow students to work like mathematicians while making sense of the mathematics. This article demonstrates how 11-12 year-old students were able to employ all of the proficiency strands while demonstrating a deep understanding of some of the "big ideas" of probabilistic thinking.

Using statistical literacy skills to determine appropriate scales to be used on graphs is an essential part of numeracy. Using several meaningful contexts, this article explains very clearly when it is appropriate and inappropriate to begin the scale of a graph at zero.

SProblem solving has a long and successful history in mathematics education and is valued by many teachers as a way to engage and facilitate learning within their classrooms. The potential benefit for using problem solving in the development of algebraic thinking is that "it may broaden and develop students' mathematical thinking beyond the…

With teachers and students in Government and Catholic schools in three geographical clusters in Victoria, the Task Type and Mathematics Learning (TTML) project is investigating the best ways to use different types of mathematics tasks, particularly in Grades 5 to 8. This article describes Type 1 tasks and discusses how they contribute to…