Conjecturing and generalising

Alf Coles writes about how he tries to create 'spaces for exploration' for the students in his classrooms.

The NRICH team are always looking for new ways to engage teachers and pupils in problem solving. Here we explain the thinking behind maths trails.

This article for teachers describes several games, found on the site, all of which have a related structure that can be used to develop the skills of strategic planning.

An article for teachers and pupils that encourages you to look at the mathematical properties of similar games.

Spotting patterns can be an important first step - explaining why it is appropriate to generalise is the next step, and often the most interesting and important.

Fractional calculus is a generalisation of ordinary calculus where you can differentiate n times when n is not a whole number.

Here explore some ideas of how the definitions and methods of calculus change if you integrate or differentiate n times when n is not a whole number.

You can differentiate and integrate n times but what if n is not a whole number? This generalisation of calculus was introduced and discussed on askNRICH by some school students.

An article which gives an account of some properties of magic squares.