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The national mathematics curriculum of Pakistan has emphasized on improving content knowledge, reasoning abilities and problem-solving skills of students about thinking, communicating and solving mathematics (national mathematics curriculum of Pakistan, 2006). Whereas, there is a need to understand the point of view of teachers about the challenges they face in achieving the goals of national mathematics curriculum. This will help leading teacher training institutions to revisit their math teacher continuous professional development (CPD) programs and facilitate school leadership in improving the quality of math education in rural schools of the province. However, the purpose of this research study is to figure out the challenges that teachers are facing while achieving the goals of the national curriculum by teaching mathematics at the primary level in educational institutes of Pakistan.

In this research study qualitative research approaches have been utilized, in which focus group discussions (FGDs) were used as data collection techniques. Furthermore, thematic analysis of the data led toward the development of four overarching themes such as teachers' knowledge about mathematics curriculum, challenges relating to mathematics content and pedagogy, difficulties in developing conceptual understanding and designing lesson plans to address students' diversity.

The overall findings of this research study suggested that the majority of teachers are facing difficulties in mathematics content teaching such as decimal fraction, unitary method, measurement principles, practical geometry and data handling. Moreover, teachers are also facing challenges and difficulties in developing hands-on and minds-on activities in the teaching of mathematical concepts to the students of primary level in educational institutes of Pakistan.

This research study will facilitate the teachers and stakeholders to address the problematic issues in the domain of content delivery of mathematics. Whereas, this study recommends educating teachers about national mathematics curriculum and to develop a CPD framework for mathematics teachers for the enhancement of their pedagogical content knowledge. The study also recommends orientating school heads about the different aspects of math curriculum so that they can mentor math teachers in achieving math curriculum goals.

This is the first research study of its nature, which targets and highlights the teacher's perceptions toward the achieving the goals of national mathematics curriculum of Pakistan and addressing the pedagogical challenges faced in mathematics teachers. There is a dearth of studies in mathematics education in Sindh province. The issue is of immense importance, the findings will help teachers to improve mathematics instructions at primary level.

This chapter provides a synthesis of the research project which investigated whether or not the most recent mathematics curriculum reform has reached the classroom and influenced classroom practice and student learning in the mainland China. Three types of evidence for change as a result of the curriculum reform were examined. These included the beliefs and perceptions of teachers about learning and teaching mathematics, the cognitive features of learning tasks and of classroom interaction that were implemented in classroom, and student learning outcomes. Two groups of elementary math teachers and their students participated in the study. One group had participated in the reform implementation in classroom for several years, and the other group had used the conventional curriculum when the project was conducted in 2005. About 150 videotaped class sessions were analyzed from 58 classrooms of the two groups. Survey methods were used to probe the changes in the beliefs and perceptions of teachers about teaching and learning mathematics. The student learning outcomes were assessed for three times with multiple measures of mathematics achievement. Findings of the project provide the converging evidence that the curriculum reform has resulted in some of the expected changes. Reform teachers were more likely to hold a dynamic view of mathematics and to indicate the importance to provide students the learning opportunity to hypothesize, to proof, and to communicate in learning mathematics. The reform classrooms used more learning tasks with higher cognitive demands. The teachers in the reform classrooms asked more questions that required students to describe procedures leading to their answers and the students in the reform classrooms raised more questions in learning mathematics. Students of the reform classrooms showed to have achieved a relatively more balanced development in different cognitive areas of mathematics achievement.

Mathematics education in the twenty-first century faces new challenges that necessitate updates to mathematics curricula. This chapter analyses the updates made to Hong Kong’s mathematics curriculum in 2017 by using the curricular spider web (van den Akker, 2003), which consists of 10 curriculum components, namely the rationale behind the curriculum, aims and objectives, content, learning activities, teacher role, materials and resources, grouping, location, time, and assessment. The findings of this analysis suggest that Hong Kong’s mathematics curriculum has been developed in line with the changing trends of international mathematics curricula, which are influenced by globalisation and internationalisation. Future research could compare the mathematics curriculum in Hong Kong with those in other parts of the world.

Purpose – This chapter focuses on the family and school influences on the achievement gaps in math and reading by gender, race, and nativity.

Methodology – With the longitudinal data from the National Education Longitudinal Studies, this chapter uses panel data technique to model for the changes of the achievement from the three time points of observation, 8th grade, 10th grade, and 12th grade. This study proposes the concept of “low-level constrained curriculum” to characterize the curriculum structure that leads to the universal low level of course taking among students within the same school.

Findings – The analysis shows that this kind of curriculum structure has the most damaging effect on individual students' math achievement outcomes. For the analysis on parental involvement, the results show that school involvement is more effective than home involvement for math achievement, but not for reading. Domain-specific parental involvement is more important than general parental involvement for both math and reading. These findings have important theoretical and policy implications.

Parts of a recent (1989) Educational Testing Service publication are reprinted here: a report of a comparative survey (by tests) of mathematics and science education among 13‐year‐olds in Canada, Ireland, Korea, Spain, the UK and the USA.

Certain researchers have expressed concerns about inequitable discipline representations in an integrated STEM/STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics) unit that may limit what students gain in terms of depth of knowledge and understanding. To address this concern, the authors investigate the stages of integrated teaching units to explore the ways in which STEAM programs can provide students with a deeper learning experience in mathematics. This paper addresses the following question: what learning stages promote a deeper understanding and more meaningful learning experience of mathematics in the context of STEAM education?

The authors carried out a qualitative case study and collected the following data: interviews, lesson observations and analyses of curriculum documents. The authors took a sample of four different STEAM programs in Ontario, Canada: two at nonprofit organizations and two at in-school research sites.

The findings contribute to a curriculum and instructional model which ensures that mathematics curriculum expectations are more explicit and targeted, in both the learning expectations and assessment criteria, and essential to the STEAM learning tasks. The findings have implications for planning and teaching STEAM programs.

The authors derived four stages of the STEAM Maker unit or lesson from the analysis of data collected from the four sites, which the authors present in this paper. These four stages offer a model for a more robust integrated curriculum focusing on a deeper understanding of mathematics curriculum content.

Being numerate involves the ability to use mathematical knowledge meaningfully across multiple contexts allowing us to order our day, optimise our health and well-being, and function in technology rich environments. Addressing numeracy from the early years of learning, and across all areas of the education curriculum, is key to lifelong learning and quality of life. Being numerate, however, is more than mathematical knowledge; the language that underpins it heavily impacts how we become numerate. This chapter examines numeracy, or mathematical literacy, investigating how literacy can include, and exclude, students from opportunities to learn at school and beyond. This chapter will also examine how numeracy can be used to provide access to educational curricula and personalised goals for students with diverse learning needs in ways that many have ignored.

This chapter explores the difference in two orientations – didaktik and curriculum – and examines how these differing stances relate to teachers’ instructional practice, engagement with professional development opportunities, and lesson design. A didaktik orientation influences much of the Nordic and Germanic countries, while a curriculum orientation is widespread in Commonwealth of Nations and the United States. This chapter explores the differences between these two theories of learning and teaching. More than just different theories of teaching and learning, we argue these theories shape how we see the world (i.e., objectified vs. subjectified) and manifest themselves in distinctive understandings of schools’ purpose, the type of learning engaged therein, and how people learn. Consequently, these orientations affect the teacher’s role, the qualifications necessary to teach, as well as other aspects of teacher quality such as instructional methods, and types of professional development.

The purpose of this paper is to examine hypothesized links between the Dana Center Mathematics Pathways’ (DCMP) Foundations of Mathematical Reasoning curriculum and the four hypothesized sources of self-efficacy. The sample of developmental mathematics students who were taught with a curriculum that incorporates active and collaborative learning reported increased ratings on social persuasions from the beginning to the end of the semester.

The study examines changes in the four sources of self-efficacy. Students completed a pre- and post-survey. Non-parametric methods were conducted to measure changes.

The paper provides empirical insights into changes in the four sources of self-efficacy with the implementation of a new curriculum in developmental mathematics classrooms. Students in the DCMP Foundation course increased their ratings on social persuasions and mastery experiences and decreased their ratings on physiological states. The largest proportion of variability in the four sources that was accounted for by course grade was mastery experiences followed by vicarious experiences, social persuasions and physiological states.

A control group was not included. Therefore, comparisons between students enrolled in the intervention course and a traditional course were not possible.

An implication of the study is that a curriculum that has an emphasis on face-to-face communication with collaborative learning activities might be linked to more positive measures of the sources of self-efficacy.

This paper fulfils a need to study how the implementation of an alternative curriculum in developmental mathematics classrooms can be linked to students’ self-efficacy.