Inducting year 6 students into a culture of mathematising as a practice

This chapter describes a classroom teaching experiment conducted in three Year 6 classes where the purpose was to induct students into the mathematising of real world tasks. The focus is on whether applications and mathematical modelling are viewed as being outside of mathematics, as an add-on, or as an integral part of mathematics, requiring students and teachers to operate in a “culture mathematising as a practice” (Bauersfeld 1993 cited in Yackel and Cobb J Res Math Educ 27(4):459, 1996). Two tasks were used. In one task student mathematising was quite superficial. The second task, introduced with an explicit focus on modelling, results in more in-depth mathematising but students still stalled in the modelling process.