Maths300

A library of inquiry-based lessons

Maths300 is a library of inquiry-based maths lessons that is owned and maintained by AAMT. The lessons are available to teachers in Australia and internationally through a subscription.

There are about 200 different lessons in the library, from Years 1-12 and covering all the content strands of the Australian Curriculum: Mathematics.  About 90 lessons have accompanying interactive software that can be used by the teachers and students to demonstrate or model the concepts that are taught in the lesson.  For example, the software can be used to demonstrate outcomes for large number of trails in lessons about probability. The software is accessed using the link provided in the Software section of the lesson details.The Maths300 resources have been used by teachers in Australia for many years. Their ongoing popularity is testament to the effectiveness and high quality of the lessons. The underlying principle of each lesson is to encourage students to learn through inquiry, collaborate and think like mathematicians.  Teachers and students find the Maths 300 activities and investigations to be a positive and engaging way of exploring and understanding mathematical concepts in the classroom.

Teachers can also use Maths300 lessons as a basis for thinking about professional practice and classroom methodology, and in particular to address the question of how to engage and stimulate students in the learning of maths.

Features of Maths300 lessons

Maths300 lessons are characterised as:

• open-ended
• investigative or inquiry-based
• focussed on solving a problem, puzzle or task
• contextualised
• facilitating thinking, collaborating and communicating
• developing connections across different concepts and domains
• accessible and challenging
• providing an opportunity to explore the use of technology in maths learning
• learning in a way that is positive and leads to success for all students
• enriching for the teacher from a pedagogical perspective

Maths 300 is a unique resource for teachers in that each lesson has a strong focus on open discussion and collaboration between the teacher and students. The lessons are intentionally designed to create activity, stimulation and noise in the classroom. Students are expected to discuss, collaborate and explore, guided by their teacher.  The classroom becomes a meeting place for mathematicians trying to solve a problem.

The use of Maths 300 does require teachers to carefully consider the planning and structure of their lessons.  The resource is as much a framework for professional learning of teachers as it is materials for use in the classroom. In this respect, Maths300 is different from other online resources for maths teachers.