Challenging students in maths

‘The emphasis is that the students are the ones doing the learning, not the teachers doing the teaching.' – Professor Peter Sullivan commenting on his work with the Catholic Education Office of Parramatta.

In this video, Teacher readers get an inside look at a program that is helping educators in New South Wales increase the challenge – and the expectations – of students in mathematics.

Strategies include getting students to work on whiteboards to ensure their thinking is visible and proposing tasks that they don't know how to do, with the teacher introducing the task effectively, providing prompts and extending their thinking.

In the video, Ciara Duffy, Leader of Learning at St Clare's Catholic High School in Hassall Grove, explains that the program is much more student-centred.

‘The students are teaching each other ... The teacher is more there to guide them, to be by their side so the knowledge that they are generating themselves (those connections that they're making) is preparing them for the next level.'

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Consider the tasks you set in your lessons: Do they challenge students and extend their thinking?