School algebra serves as the language of mathematics and a foundational subject for learning advanced mathematics courses. This makes developing learners' proficiency in algebra the most desirable instructional goal of school mathematics. Despite having such importance emphasis, however, studies indicate that the vast majority of learners are…

Ongoing concern about poor learner performance in mathematics has led to wide-ranging research on the subject, globally and in South Africa. Among the remedies identified is the reformation of pre-service teacher (PST) education programmes in a way that supports the acquisition of professional skills for pre-service teachers. Developing PSTs'…

The outbreak of COVID-19 and the consequent lockdown took the world by surprise, forcing the trimming of the school curriculum and institutions of higher learning to urgently adopt online platforms to continue teaching and learning. This article is a case study that explores the use of a social media platform, WhatsApp, to improve peer learning…

Ticks and crosses (TCs) are a common aspect of teachers' classroom practice in relation to assessment in many learning areas including mathematics. Putting TCs in learners' written work is a strategy of feedback. Even though these TCs are frequently used in different types of mathematics assessments, there is limited research in relation to what…

Possessing mathematical competence is a pre requisite for independently comprehending, understanding and applying all features of mathematical modelling in a particular setting. This research study thus explores the mathematical modelling competencies that Grade 10 learners exhibit while solving contextual problems in a mathematics learning and…

The ways teachers converse about their work in relation to information and communications technologies (ICTs) are worth studying. We analyse how a teacher converses about her local practices in relation to two spreadsheet algebra programs (SAPs) on variables. During the conversations we noticed that the teacher keeps different policy documents --…

Learner diversity should be understood beyond the aspects of race, culture and gender. Learner-centred practices have been highly acclaimed as practical tools to meet learner needs in diverse classrooms. The purpose of this research is to determine whether mathematics teachers can employ assessment to monitor and encourage learner diversity in…

This study explored the utilisation of GeoGebra as a modelling tool to develop undergraduate engineering mathematics students' conceptual and procedural knowledge of complex numbers. This mission was accomplished by implementing GeoGebra-enriched activities, which provided carefully designed representational support to mediate between students'…

Error analysis is an instructional strategy that can assist teachers to identify learners' areas of weakness in mathematics and that can point to remediation of those errors. This article explores the errors learners exhibit when solving quadratic equations by completing the square using Newman's Error Analysis Model. A research study explored the…

In this article, we argue that folding back is successful when the learners engage in exploratory talk. To support our argument, we sourced data from a Grade 10 mathematics classroom of 54 learners who participated in a four-week teaching experiment conducted by the second author. We mainly focused on talks in two groups of learners to address the…

Mathematics education remains problematic in South Africa's schools. However, some mathematics educators are deliberately using learners' home languages in tasks to assist learners to understand mathematics. Research-based evidence shows that learners' home languages when used as a resource have a potential to enhance learners' understanding of…

The education sector, among others, was severely affected by the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Because mathematics has always been singled out as a subject that needs more verbal communication and interaction, rapid adjustments had to be made by mathematics lecturers in higher education institutions to try and facilitate normal…

This case study carried out during the 2020 coronavirus disease of 2019 (COVID-19) lockdown used online data collection means to investigate the distribution of cognitive demand levels of probability and counting principles (PCP) learning tasks in a popular online Grade 12 mathematics textbook, based on the PCP teachers' rating. The teachers'…

The current quantitative study, a naturalistic field experiment, was conducted in a public primary school in Soweto, Johannesburg, with the objective to examine how children's achievement on four assessments at the beginning of Grade R, namely their numeracy, their mathematics-specific vocabulary, their executive functions, and their logical…

In the South African educational system, student teachers are deployed to schools for practical experience, where they are monitored by lecturers from their universities. Student teachers are also mentored by teachers allocated to them by the school principal. Some of these mentoring teachers are themselves newly qualified and may have little or…