Teaching primary school mathematics can be challenging! With students at different learning levels, curriculum updates, and teaching practices now prioritising conceptual understanding over rote-learning formulas; the workload can seem insurmountable, and for some teachers, anxiety about meeting student goals becomes overwhelming.
At ORIGO Education, we are committed to helping teachers overcome these challenges and have partnered with primary schools for over 25 years to make mathematics enjoyable, accessible and meaningful for all.
Teachers across Australia shared their 4 main challenges in teaching Foundation to Year 6 mathematics (see below). These critical insights informed our new digital resource ORIGO Mathematics.
To help us gain a deeper understanding of how we could support teachers and school leaders, we surveyed primary schools across Australia to identify the biggest challenges educators face. The four key insights shared below helped shape our newest digital teaching resource, ORIGO Mathematics.
1: Teaching mathematics across multiple levels and differentiation
One of the main challenges highlighted by teachers in our survey, was the need to cater to diverse learning levels within their classrooms. With students spanning a wide range of mathematical abilities, differentiation was seen as key to meeting these individual needs. Many schools also mentioned how challenging it is to find quality resources to support differentiation and individualised learning.
ORIGO Mathematics has recognised this challenge and is designed to provide the flexibility required to teach across multiple learning levels. It supports differentiated teaching, so you can create individualised lesson plans or simply login, search for content matching the required student outcomes, and start teaching with minimum preparation.
As Foundation to Year 6 content is all in one place, it also allows the flexibility to revisit previously learned concepts or extend students depending on their learning needs. Differentiated sequences of learning can be saved and used later. This flexibility means that ORIGO Mathematics can work alongside a school’s existing programs and assessment requirements.
2: Keeping students engaged and interested in learning mathematics
Making mathematics engaging and relevant to students was identified as another critical challenge. Teachers understand it is not enough to merely teach concepts, they need engaging approaches, tools and resources that will help spark curiosity, enthusiasm and foster a lifelong love of maths.
In ORIGO Mathematics, teachers are provided with questions and contexts that relate to children’s everyday lives, including school and home scenarios. This encourages open-ended discussion and interactive learning to encourage a deeper understanding and enjoyment of mathematics.
ORIGO Education believes that conceptual understanding promotes confidence and efficient thinking strategies in mathematics. ORIGO Mathematics utilises games and interactive learning experiences to cement students’ understanding of concepts and their mathematical skills.
3. Lack of hands-on resources and manipulatives
Hands-on experiences were seen as key to developing a concrete understanding of mathematical concepts, especially in the early stages of learning.
ORIGO Mathematics' learning experiences are purposely designed to be hands-on, interactive, and engaging to help build a conceptual understanding of mathematics.
ORIGO Mathematics also includes simple resource lists, learning prerequisites, concise teacher notes with suggested hands-on activities, key critical and creative thinking questions, guides for teaching with digital tools such as visual programming, student experience PDFs, and answer keys. Lessons are created with teachers in mind, utilising resources most Australian primary school classrooms would already have, minimising preparation time.
Student experience PDFs can be cast to individual digital devices or annotated on interactive screens to minimise time spent printing and copying student worksheets.
4. Encouraging problem solving and finding effective teacher resources
Developing problem-solving skills are an essential component in teaching mathematics, and teachers highlighted the need for effective strategies and resources to support this.
Critical and creative thinking is one of the interwoven general capabilities of the Australian Curriculum. It is practised through exploring possibilities and problem solving which means that learning mathematics can be a great opportunity to hone these skills. ORIGO Mathematics provides open-ended questions and mathematical modelling opportunities to promote this type of thinking in students
The learning experiences in ORIGO Mathematics are based on the content of the Australian Curriculum version 9.0 and cover the strands of Number, Algebra, Measurement, Space, Probability, and Statistics. The aim of these learning experiences is to give students opportunities to identify possibilities, give explanations, apply new ideas, and understand flexibility while learning mathematics.
Each lesson is also aligned and tagged with other curriculum and syllabus outcomes from Australia including the Australian Curriculum version 8.4, the Victorian Curriculum, and both versions of the NSW Syllabus. This makes searching for content that meets students' needs and curriculum outcomes much simpler.
Keen to try out ORIGO Mathematics? Get started for free today!
ORIGO Mathematics is a flexible lesson library of ~1000 learning experiences for Years F-6 all in one place.
It supports differentiated teaching and just-in-time use, so you can create individualised lesson plans or simply log in and start teaching. ORIGO Mathematics:
- is aligned to the latest curriculum or syllabus of each state.
- covers number, algebra, measurement, space (geometry), probability and statistics.
- has engaging lessons that deliver real-world learning, problem solving skills, and build conceptual understanding of mathematics.
- includes concise teacher notes, guides for teaching with digital tools, student experience printouts, and answer keys.
- works alongside existing assessment tools and programs.
- easy to use and easy to teach – you will be up and running in no time!
Simply fill out your contact details and we will be in touch within 1 – 2 business days with your free trial details.
Request your free trial >
Visit the ORIGO Education website.
