Students often struggle to connect math with the real world. Word problems—a combination of words, numbers, and mathematical operations—can be a perfect vehicle to take abstract numbers off the page.

To learn math, students must build a mental toolbox of facts and procedures needed for different problems. But students who can recall these foundational facts in isolation often struggle to use them ...

We like to think that we're pretty good at math, especially after years of schooling. But every once in a while, a simple third-grade math problem manages to trip us up and make us question our ...

Among high school students and adults, girls and women are much more likely to use traditional, step-by-step algorithms to solve basic math problems – such as lining up numbers to add, starting with ...

Alan Veliz-Cuba has received funding from the Simons Foundation and the American Mathematical Society for some of his research. You can probably think of a time when you’ve used math to solve an ...

Working memory is like a mental chalkboard we use to store temporary information while executing other tasks. Scientists worked with more than 200 elementary students to test their working memory, ...

The math crisis narrative is now familiar: On the Nation’s Report Card in 2024, only two in five fourth graders were proficient in grade-level math. By eighth grade, proficiency drops to just one in ...

A dad in Virginia ended up turning to social media for help after becoming confused by a first-grade math problem. Math seems to be a problem for many young Americans. In 2022, the Programme for ...

I’ve been out of school a long time (I mean a long time), yet I think I’m still pretty good at basic math. I’m always able to figure out whether a “bargain buy” at the supermarket is actually a ...

Chatbots like ChatGPT get stuff wrong. But researchers are building new A.I. systems that can verify their own math — and maybe more. By Cade Metz Reporting from San Francisco On a recent afternoon, ...