Editorial.

Beswick, Kim ; Muir Tracey

Welcome to the first issue of Australian Primary Mathematics Classroom (APMC) for 2010. We trust that the new school year has started well for you and that you will continue to find APMC a source of ideas to inspire your students to explore mathematics. If you are a new reader of APMC, you are especially welcome and we hope that you will be come a regular reader-and perhaps even an author. We are always very keen to publish articles written by teachers for their colleagues, so please consider writing about a particular activity or approach to mathematics teaching that you have found effective, or simply sharing something that you have learned from your students about teaching mathematics. We can assure you that the response will be positive and helpful (it is usual for articles to be revised and worked on in response to feedback from our wonderful reviewers). Follow the link at www.aamt.edu.au/Professional-learning/ Journals for more information about how to contribute an article.

You may have had a chance to look at the draft Australian Curriculum--Mathematics or perhaps your school is part of the trialling process through the first half the year. We encourage all teachers to consider the draft carefully and to provide feedback, either as individuals and/or through their local associations affiliated with The Australian Association of Mathematics Teachers (AAMT), so that the final document meets the needs of teachers and, most importantly, learners of mathematics. Do not forget that you can register at www.acara.edu.au to receive email alerts about the new developments and opportunities to contribute. Our first article for 2010, by Elizabeth Warren and Eva DeVries, reports on activities that have been used effectively with young Indigenous students to develop deep mathematical understanding and enhance engagement with mathematics. They stress the importance of mathematical communication and representations and focus on early number ideas. Many of these ideas are readily transferable to other early mathematics learning contexts.

Philip Clarkson picks up a theme that is very relevant in the Australian context: that of gardening and, particularly, the efficient use of water. He describes investigations conducted by students in three schools and highlights the considerable mathematics that can be developed using this context. Students were involved in collecting and representing data, designing piping networks, and working with fractions, percent and ratio.

The first Hot Ideas for 2010 are contributed by Gai Mooney and provide a timely reminder of the opportunities afforded by CensusAtSchool. The project is running annually from 2010, participation is free, and real data from thousands of students is available for students to work with at any time. It is well worth considering getting your class involved.

Unfortunately many students (whose teachers are not readers of APMC!) leave the compulsory years of schooling with very negative views of mathematics. Len Sparrow and Chris Hurst explain how negative experiences-resulting in negative emotions--can become reinforcing and take considerable effort to change. They suggest that the keys to turning this situation around are making sure that we offer varied learning experiences, are explicit about the mathematical purposes of tasks, and use open tasks that can be adjusted to provide the right balance of challenge and success for students. The tried and true activities they present are an excellent start.

In our fourth article, Hui Fang Huang Su, Carol Marinas and Joseph M. Furner introduce a free Web-based tool that can be used to enhance students' number sense across the primary school grades. The Square Tool provides flexible ways to draw students' attention to number patterns and the properties of numbers.

Bryony Heath, our first New Voices author for the year, discusses the importance of establishing meaning for mathematical notation rather than simply focusing on naming symbols. She illustrates the point with a description of how she introduced the symbols ">" (greater than) and "<" (less than) and what she learned as a result.

We hope that you enjoy the articles in this first edition for 2010.