Engaging Maths: Higher Order Thinking with Thinkers Keys – Dr Catherine Attard

Dr Catherine Attard’s book ‘Higher Order Thinking with Thinkers Keys’ provides more than 200 rich and open-ended activities across each of the strands of the Australian Curriculum: Mathematics. It contains real student work samples that are annotated and linked directly to content descriptions from the curriculum. Also provided is aresource lists and ideas for implementation. This book promotes higher order thinking for ALL children not just the high achievers! Higher Order Thinking is suitable for students in Years 3 to 6. Catherine is an Associate Professorin primary mathematics pedagogy and Distinguished Teaching Fellow at Western Sydney University. Her PhD research was focused on engagement with mathematics and issues surrounding the teachingpractices that influence students’ engagement. Catherine’s more recent research has exploredthe effective use of mobile technologies to enhance the teaching and learning of mathematics. She is researching theeffectiveness of sustained professional development on building teacher capacity and improving student learning outcomes. Other research projects that Catherine has been involved with include the ‘Fair Go Bridges’ project, exploring the engaging pedagogies of exemplary teachers in greater western Sydney schools. This year Catherine is conductinga new project with funding from Financial Literacy Australia, to explore the use of financial literacy education as a tool to promote engagement with mathematics at schools from low socio-economic areas. Catherine’s passion is teaching. Shehas won several teaching awards, including anational Office of Learning and Teaching citation for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning and more recently the UWS University Award for Excellence in Teaching. She regularly presents workshops and keynotes nationally and is currently the Vice-President of the Mathematical Association of New South Wales and Secretary of the Mathematics Education Research Group of Australasia. She is also the immediate pasteditor of the national journal, Australian Primary Mathematics Classroomandthe Director ofthe Education Knowledge Network within the School of Education at UWS, which provides high quality professional learning for practicing early childhood, primary and secondary teachers. Catherine has published several teaching resource books as well as a mathematics board game, Mabble.