Triangulation: Finding the method for teaching mathematics in the primary school

Abstract

The bases for this review are three recently published, current Australian mathematics teacher education texts. The strength of the Australian mathematics education community is shown by the collaboration of its members in these three books intended to introduce pre-service and practising teachers to fundamental ideas about teaching and learning school mathematics. The purpose of this review is to consider the degree to which these three books would support best practice by teachers of early childhood mathematics (K-2), as well as to compare and contrast their different approaches to teaching and learning mathematics. The authors are all respected mathematics educators and are representative, currently, of four Australian states: New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, and Western Australia. Each of the books is structured similarly, with a beginning section of one or more introductory chapters on what is mathematics in the twenty-first century and theories of how it should be taught, a section containing the majority of the chapters which outline the content of what is to be taught and strategies for teaching this content, and a third section which includes chapters concerned with effective learning, planning, and assessment. Mathematical content and processes are clearly related to age so each book’s provision for early childhood mathematics is most apparent in the second section. Although these three sections are not explicitly identified in Teaching Book Reviews