Course: Maths Subject Knowledge: Understanding Numbers

As with perfect numbers, there is no practical application for happy numbers. This activity to create sequences of numbers to discover whether a number is a “Happy” number, requires students …

Well done for reaching the final part of the course, where you’ll review your learning and record your professional development. This step focuses on your reflection grids and revisits your …

There are professional mathematicians, particularly pure mathematicians, whose jobs is to explore mathematics, find connections and make sense of how mathematics works. When mathematicians make discoveries often these discoveries have …

Square numbers are those whole numbers such that if that number is represented by that many dots we can arrange the dots in the shape of a square. Think of …

Triangle numbers are those whole numbers such that if that number is represented by that many dots we can arrange the dots in the shape of a triangle. Paula and …

Geometric sequences have a common ratio. To find the next term of a geometric sequence we multiply the current term by the common ratio. We have seen that arithmetic sequences …

When students learn about arithmetic sequences they are very often just taught the procedure for finding the position to term rule: the nth term. It can help students understand the …

The Fibonacci sequence is best described using a term to term rule and is how the sequence is described in school. There is a position to term rule but it …

Arithmetic sequences are the most common type of sequence students meet. It is important to emphasise that there are two ways to describe arithmetic sequence: the term to term rule …

Below are some examples of number sequences, some have a mathematical rule behind them, others do not. Challenge Take a look at the following sequences. a) 3, 3, 5, 4, …

Let’s clarify some of the terminology used to define sequences. A sequence is usually denoted using a capital letter. The sequence \(E\) is the sequence of even numbers 2,4,6,8, _, …

As a result of this week’s work you should be feeling more confident when confronted by negative numbers and should be able to explain why the product of two negative …

Welcome to week four of the course. Last week we explored negative numbers, saw the order in which operations should be performed and looked at how to express solutions in …

When performing calculations that involve circles we will usually be required to use a value for \(\pi\) (pi). The exact value of pi cannot be found as it an irrational …

In some cases a rounded answer is not sufficient and the context of the problem requires an exact answer. When performing a calculation which requires a large number of steps …