Priorities for Middle School Mathematics:

New Directions from Research for Number and Algebra

Kaye Stacey

University of Melbourne

k.stacey@edfac.unimelb.edu.au

This article highlights some fundamental areas of middle school mathematics that I believe are priorities for attention in the middle years of schooling. In recent years, we have conducted several research projects at the University of Melbourne on number and algebra learning. Examining the work of several thousand children has shown that difficulties in certain topics persist to affect many areas of mathematics. Two such topics that consequently need special attention are discussed in this article.

Firstly, I discuss the need to develop strong conceptions of number, not just of positive whole number. Secondly some aspects of making a transition from arithmetic to algebraic thinking are discussed. Arithmetic leads to algebra, but with a twist! Both topics require students to make fundamental re-organisations of their thinking: helping children do this is a main agenda of mathematics in the middle years on which success in later years depends.