2.1  Content

School mathematics curricula have traditionally focused on lists of content objectives in areas like number, arithmetic, statistics, measurement, geometry, trigonometry, and algebra. A typical list of content objectives might contain over one hundred objectives to be introduced or revisited and learned each year. These can be seen as hierarchical in nature but many textbooks do not attempt to organise the objectives in ways that enable the bigger underpinning ideas to become apparent to the learners. In addition, the order of the listing has often resulted in applications of concepts being viewed as end-of-topic activities rather than being valued as providing meaningful and motivating contexts for learning.