To increase the likelihood of Australia sustaining a position on the cutting edge of
research design in Science, Engineering, and Technology, school learning environments need
to stimulate and nurture creative mathematical thinking. The characterisation of teaching
and learning situations that promote creative mathematical thinking would support teacher
educators and teachers in pursuit of this goal. The work in progress in this paper describes
the construction of a tool to analyse tasks for the purpose of evaluating their potential to
stimulate creativity. Contrast of the potential and actual student responses to a task found
to trigger some creative thinking provided a way to study the mismatch and identify
characteristics of the task as implemented that influenced the stimulation of creative
thinking.