Editorial.
Attard, Catherine
Welcome to the second issue of Australian Primary Mathematics
Classroom for 2015. In this issue we see a focus on the Proficiency
strand and the Australian Curriculum general capability of Information
and Communication (ICT). Each of the articles in this issue provides
sound advice and practical teaching and learning ideas for the primary
mathematics classroom.
In the first article, Host, Baynham and McMaster present the second
part of their work on using technology to explore angles. They provide a
range of hands-on and technology-based activities that focus on the
ideas of opening and turns. We then turn to the important proficiency of
reasoning, where Bragg, Loong, Widjaja, Vale and Herbert explore via the
'magic V' task. They share their experiences of delivering the
task in classrooms in Australia and Canada and provide some useful
advice on how to support reasoning and promote the skills of justifying
and forming generalisations.
Continuing the theme of proficiencies, Jessica Hunt gives us
insight into how to gain a better understanding of the mathematical
thinking of children in primary classrooms. She describes the use of
clinical interviews and provides us with a framework for planning and
conducting interviews in our own classrooms.
One of our regular contributors, Maria Northcote, has written a
very practical article for teachers who may lack confidence in the use
of technology in their mathematics lessons. Maria describes four free
online tools and ways they can be used to enhance lessons and engage
your students. In our final article, James Russo presents a brand new
framework for teaching mental computation in the early years. James
describes the 'SURF' framework and its goals and advantages.
This is my last issue as editor of APMC. I sincerely hope you have
enjoyed reading the issues of the last two years and that the articles
have provided some valuable professional learning and teaching ideas
that you have been able to apply in your own classroom. I would like to
take this opportunity to thank the staff at the AAMT office for their
ongoing assistance, particularly Toby Spencer and Jacquie Sprott. I
would also like to thank the panel of reviewers for their dedication and
hard work--without their contributions we wouldn't have a journal
of such high quality.
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Catherine Attard
University of Western Sydney
<c.attard@uws.edu.au>
