Teaching of elementary probability: Not leaving it to chance

This paper considers the role of content knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge in the teaching of probability to Grade 5 students. Lessons of two teachers were studied to determine the activities and teaching strategies used to bring out ideas associated with chance, and examine how probability understanding is developed in class. The lessons are shown to be rich in deep probabilistic ideas. The complex interplay between these concepts was sometimes handled well by the teachers, whereas on other occasions gaps in content and pedagogical content knowledge had the potential to cause misconceptions for students.