Episode 3: Why is teaching dividing fractions so difficult?

Episode 3: Why is teaching dividing fractions so difficult?

Dividing fractions is the focus for this episode. This is a topic which is well known to be difficult for learners to understand. This episode is a conversation between Elizabeth Bridgett, Lisa Coe and Jay Timotheus and is centred on two articles: Sam Brace’s Awareness of the division of fractions: keep your flipping change to yourself! from MT297, published in 2025, and Pete Griffin’s Doing and construing from MT227 in 2012. Also referred to in the podcast are John Mason’s 2004 Open University paper, Doing ≠ Construing and Doing + Discussing ≠ Learning: The Importance of the Structure Of Attention, along with the much more recent Dividing fractions - realising I know nothing by Alex Spencer in MT296 (2025). We also think about the ideas in Jay’s own Division by a fraction: Do you see what I say?, co-authored with Sally O’Brien in MT271 (2020). Mathematics Teaching is the journal of the Association of Teachers of Mathematics, which is now part of AMiE: The Association for Mathematics in Education.

Episode 2. Everyone can think mathematically.

In this episode, Lisa Coe, Fin McLaughlin and Jay Timotheus talk about John Mason's 1987 article, "Only awareness is educable" from MT120, alongside Tom Francome's 2025 article, "Everyone can think mathematically" from MT296. Fin recommended two books in this episode: Thinking Mathematically, by John Mason, Leone Burton and Kaye Stacey (Pearson, 1982, and 2010) and Researching Your Own Practice: The Discipline of Noticing, by John Mason (Routledge, 2001). Mathematics Teaching is the journal of the Association of Teachers of Mathematics. mttalk.co.uk

Episode 1. MT talk about talk!

In this episode, Elizabeth Bridgett, Lisa Coe and Jay Timotheus compare and contrast Mike Askew's 1999 article, "Teaching numeracy: will we ever learn?" from MT168 with Jane Hawkins' much more recent, 2025 article, "Why purposeful talk in mathematics lessons matters" in MT296. Also mentioned in this episode is the 1999 paper "Arbitrary and Necessary Part 1: A Way of Viewing the Mathematics Curriculum", Dave Hewitt's first in a three-part series in For the Learning of Mathematics, as well as Mike Askew's book, Transforming Primary Mathematics, published by Routledge in 2011. Mathematics Teaching is the journal of the Association of Teachers of Mathematics. mttalk.co.uk