Making connections to the big ideas in mathematics: Promoting proportional reasoning

The focus of this paper is on proportional reasoning, emphasising its pervasiveness throughout the mathematics curriculum, but also highlighting its elusiveness. Proportional reasoning is required for students to operate successfully in many rational number topics (fractions, decimals, percentages), but also other topics (scale drawing, probability, trigonometry). Proportional reasoning is also required in many other school curriculum topics (for example, drawing timelines in history, interpreting density, molarity, speed calculations in science). In this paper, an overview of mathematics education research on proportional reasoning will be presented, highlighting the complex nature of the development of proportional reasoning and implications for learning and instruction. Through presentation of results of a current research project on proportional reasoning in the middle years, teaching approaches that have captured and engaged students' interest in exploring proportion-related situations will be shared