Being explicit about aspects of mathematics pedagogy

It is conventional wisdom that contextualising mathematics tasks can make them more meaningful for students, and that open-ended questions create opportunities for student engagement. Yet concerns are emerging that strategies such as these may exacerbate the disadvantage of some. We report data from a project that seeks to address such concerns by encouraging teachers to be explicit about aspects of their pedagogy. Men teachers were explicit about aspects of the pedagogy, the students responded in the direction intended.<br /><br />