Improving first year mathematics teaching through making connections: an action research approach

Four university lecturers at an Australian university have been undertaking an action research project for almost two years to improve first year mathematics teaching. The project is analysed here through the single idea of "connection". Making new connections or changing the nature of existing connections with colleagues and especially with students is leading to different ways of teaching. Beliefs and practices that had remained, until now, unexamined, are being abandoned, modified, or at the very least, questioned.