Selected excerpts from the Victorian CAA 2002

The paragraphs below are reproduced from the Curriculum and Standards Framework II publication for the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority

Approaches to teaching and learning in Mathematics

While there is no preferred way to teach mathematics, many of the most successful approaches share the following characteristics:

• teaching from a base of concrete experience
• recognising mathematics as abstract and general
• using a variety of modes of classroom activity
• emphasising applications
• recognising individual differences and different learning styles and needs
• emphasising the sensible use of mathematics, with attention to checking the reasonableness of results, choosing and using tools appropriately and effectively and being alert to finding reasons why ideas do, or do not, work
• allowing time for growth.

Overview of the Chance and Data strand

There are still people who are bewildered and confused by almost any presentation of numerical information. It is important that students acquire an appreciation of the tasks that statistics can perform and the capacity to critically understand information presented in a statistical mode. Apart from its general value, students also need to use statistical tools in studies other than mathematics. Some, of course, will go further to become statisticians of the future.

Work in the Chance and Data strand will be motivated by the desire to answer questions of interest to the students. These questions crucially determine the amount and type of data that needs to be collected, the way in which it is organised and displayed, which summary statistics are relevant and the inferences that may then be drawn. Summarising and representing data in context devoid of opportunity for such questions serves little real purpose other than learning skills for their own sake.