How parents can help students learn mathematics.

Parents do not need to be their children's teachers. But there are many ways that parents can support the learning of mathematics.

This session will outline the principles that can guide interactions of parents with their children. There will also be discussion of the general approaches to teaching mathematics advocated now.

About Peter Sullivan

Peter has had a career that combines research into task design with the development of teacher support resources and classroom trialling. He was author of the Shape of the Australian Mathematics Curriculum, a paper commissioned by the National Curriculum Board to lay the foundation of the Australian curriculum. Subsequently he was appointed the “lead writer” for the development phases of the curriculum and has supported ongoing development of the documents, including consulting on the review conducted in 2015. He was also the author of the Australian Education Review publication “Teaching mathematics: Using research-informed strategies” that has now been downloaded over 240,000 times from the ACER website.

Peter was editor for seven years, and for three years chief editor of the prestigious Journal for Mathematics Teacher Education, published by Springer. He was also editor of the Mathematics Education Research Journal published by Springer. He has an extensive list of publications for teachers and researchers including books, books chapters, journal articles and conference publications.

Research interests

• Mathematics curriculum, especially National Curriculum

• Teaching and learning in Mathematics

• Student engagement

• Disadvantaged students' achievement in mathematics