This paper investigates the nature of the interaction between the teacher and students as they worked on different mathematics activities in a single classroom over a 10-month period. Sociocultural theories and the Vygotskian zone of proximal development provide the main framework for examining the teaching and learning processes and explaining the incorporation of a four-phase lesson plan as increasing participation of the teacher and students in the teaching and learning process. Drawing on the analyses of discourse from videotaped lessons and the interviews with the teacher and students, five different types of interactions that emphasized mathematical sense-making and justification of ideas and arguments were identified. Excerpts from transcriptions of such interactions are provided to illustrate the learning practices, either academic or non-academic, that students developed in response to these interactions.

• Exemplary mathematics instruction and its development in selected education systems in East Asia, by Yeping Li and Yoshinori Shimizu
• Mathematics classroom instruction excellence through the platform of teaching contests, by Yeping Li and Jun Li
• How a Chinese teacher improved classroom teaching in Teaching Research Group: a case study on Pythagoras theorem teaching in Shanghai, by Yudong Yang
• Pursuing excellence in mathematics classroom instruction through exemplary lesson development in China: a case study, by Rongjin Huang and Yeping Li
• Characterizing exemplary mathematics instruction in Japanese classrooms from the learner’s perspective, by Yoshinori Shimizu
• In search of an exemplary mathematics lesson in Hong Kong: an algebra lesson on factorization of polynomials, by Ida Ah Chee Mok
• Characteristics of good mathematics teaching in Singapore grade 8 classrooms: a juxtaposition of teachers’ practice and students’ perception, by Berinderjeet Kaur
• Good mathematics instruction in South Korea, by JeongSuk Pang
• Searching for good mathematics instruction at primary school level valued in Taiwan, by Pi-Jen Lin and Yeping Li
• Exemplary mathematics lessons: what lessons we can learn from them? by Ngai-Ying Wong
• Exemplary mathematics lessons: a view from the West, by Susie Groves
• Book review: Joan B. Garfield and Dani Ben-Zvi: Developing students’ statistical reasoning: connecting research and teaching practice, by Jane Watson

• Teaching for social justice: exploring the development of student agency through participation in the literacy practices of a mathematics classroom, by Raymond Brown
• Using social semiotics to prepare mathematics teachers to teach for social justice, by Elizabeth de Freitas and Betina Zolkower
• Mathematics in and through social justice: another misunderstood marriage? by Kathleen Nolan
• How to drag with a worn-out mouse? Searching for social justice through collaboration, by Miriam Godoy Penteado and Ole Skovsmose

• Comparative studies of mathematics teachers’ observable learning objectives: validating low inference codes, by Paul Andrews
• The role of contextual, conceptual and procedural knowledge in activating mathematical competencies (PISA), by César Sáenz
• Prospective elementary teachers’ motivation to participate in whole-class discussions during mathematics content courses for teachers, by Amanda Jansen
• Using the history of mathematics to induce changes in preservice teachers’ beliefs and attitudes: insights from evaluating a teacher education program, by Charalambos Y. Charalambous, Areti Panaoura and George Philippou
• Mathematical enculturation from the students’ perspective: shifts in problem-solving beliefs and behaviour during the bachelor programme, by Jacob Perrenet and Ruurd Taconis

The article by Perrenet and Taconis is an Open Access article, meaning that it is freely available to everyone, regardless of whether you are a subscriber or not.

The current push to marry off mathematics with social justice compels one to ask such critical questions as “What is social justice?” and “How does (or can) mathematics look and act when viewed in/through the lenses of social justice?” Taking a critically reflective approach, this article draws the reader into a discussion of what is amiss in the currently promoted picture-perfect marriage of mathematics and social justice, presenting perspectives on both the content and context of mathematics teaching and learning. In this article, the author’s account of her experience in teaching a mathematics curriculum course for prospective middle years’ teachers highlights a call to re-imagine the relationship between mathematics and social justice as more than a perfunctory integration of a “statistics and figures” approach. The author’s reflections acknowledge the complexity and potentiality of the relationship while challenging current status quo practices and paradigms in mathematics education.

Here is the abstract of their article:

What may teachers do in developing and carrying out exemplary or high-quality mathematics classroom instruction? What can we learn from teachers’ instructional practices that are often culturally valued in different education systems? In this article, we aim to highlight relevant issues that have long been interests of mathematics educators worldwide in identifying and examining teachers’ practices in high-quality mathematics classroom instruction, and outline what articles published herein can help further our understanding of such issues with cases of exemplary mathematics instruction valued in the Chinese Mainland, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan.

The ability to estimate is a fundamental real-world skill; it allows students to check the reasonableness of answers found through other means, and it can help students develop a better understanding of place value, mathematical operations, and general number sense. Flexibility in the use of strategies is particularly critical in computational estimation. The ability to perform complex calculations mentally is cognitively challenging for many students; thus, it is important to have a broad repertoire of estimation strategies and to select the most appropriate strategy for a given problem. In this paper, we consider the role of students’ prior knowledge of estimation strategies in the effectiveness of interventions designed to promote strategy flexibility across two recent studies. In the first, 65 fifth graders began the study as fluent users of one strategy for computing mental estimates to multi-digit multiplication problems such as 17 × 41. In the second, 157 fifth and sixth graders began the study with moderate to low prior knowledge of strategies for computing mental estimates. Results indicated that students’ fluency with estimation strategies had an impact on which strategies they adopted. Students who exhibited high fluency at pretest were more likely to increase use of estimation strategies that led to more accurate estimates, while students with less fluency adopted strategies that were easiest to implement. Our results suggest that both the ease and accuracy of strategies as well as students’ fluency with strategies are all important factors in the development of strategy flexibility.