Abstract
This paper aims at improving mathematics teaching and learning in Zambia. Number brick, which is one of Substantial Learning Environments (SLEs), was applied into mathematics lessons. Number brick gives students a chance to enhance two different abilities of mathematics: basic calculation skills and other higher-order thinking skills. This paper qualitatively discusses the whole-class learning situations in Grade 5 lessons. The author mainly described two learning situations in a series of lessons. The teacher helped students' incomplete answers by encouraging them to say some more mathematical expressions. On the other hand, students showed some difficulties and instability in simple calculations which they had already learned. Furthermore, in the analysis of students' verbal expressions, the verbal responses were limited to a few words. The students successively used a verbal format which the teacher introduced in order to help their language difficulty. In other cases, on the other hand, they were not able to reason or explain their mathematical ideas and the teacher failed to help them. In conclusion, students were given an opportunity to foster their higher-order thinking skills in lessons; however, we found some challenges in teaching such as: responding students' incomplete or wrong answers, and deliberately creating learning situations where students can be faced to their mistakes in their learning.
