The following is an article by Tony Gardiner, originally published in 1996 in the Mathematical Gazette. It is reproduced here with the kind permission of Tony, the Chief Editor of the Mathematical Gazette and the Mathematical Association. The original article is available on JSTOR, here (via an educational library), and we’ve also separately posted the […]
We have written about Tony Gardiner and excerpted from his writings a number of times: here, here, here, here and here. We will post an entire article by Tony in a day or so, but we are first posting the problems contained within the article. Unlike the “problem” here, the problems below are genuinely presented […]
This is our final excerpt from Teaching Mathematics at Secondary Level Tony Gardiner’s 2016 commentary and guide to the English Mathematics Curriculum. (The first two excerpts are here and here.) It is a long and beautifully clear discussion of the nature of problem-solving, and its proper place in a mathematics curriculum (pp 63-73). (For Australia’s […]
Our first excerpt from Tony Gardiner’s Teaching Mathematics at Secondary Level is here. Our second excerpt is a short remark on “financial mathematics” in a mathematics curriculum (p 75). The relevance to Australia’s draft curriculum is obvious.
It’s been a while. We’ve been trying hard to get out a long, long post on ACARA and the draft curriculum. (Working title: Moby Albatross). We also had a great WitCH planned, but that was torpedoed by Simon the Likeable. For now, we’ll keep readers occupied with some excerpts from the writing of Tony Gardiner. […]
As a traditional Chinese parent, my girlfriend1 Ying is concerned with our daughters’ arithmetic skills.2 To this end, Ying has played a game with them from an early age and still plays it with them: the game is called 24. The rules of 24 are simple: deal four cards, and then use all four cards […]
This post concerns an exercise and two problems. The exercise is from Alexandr Borovik and Tony Gardiner’s book, The Essence of Mathematics Through Elementary Problems: Tanya said: “I have three more brothers than sisters”. How many more boys are there in Tanya’s family than girls?
We’ve already written about the lack of proof in the Australian curriculum. The problem is much more fundamental than that, however: there is a lack of clear mathematical constructs to even prove things about.
Eddie Woo has been annoying for a long time. Eddie knows much less than he realises and his smiling inanities, which are invariably swallowed whole, are a continual distraction from real issues and real solutions. But he’s gotten worse. Eddie Professor of Practice Woo has graduated from being a distraction and an annoyance to being […]
There’s no been shortage of Bad Stuff posts lately, even by the wallowing standards of this blog. So, today, let’s have an uplifting chat:* what are the good mathematics teaching resources? This is the third and final post inspired by mysterious commenter texas. First, for who people should read on maths ed, see the discussion […]