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 ...

From classrooms to kitchen tables, debates about math education are never far away. Should teachers drill multiplication facts or encourage creative strategies to solve problems? The answer, ...

Solving arithmetic problems, even simple subtractions, involves mental representations whose influence remains to be clarified. Visualizing these representations would enable us to better understand ...

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, ...

Mathematicians excel at handling complexity and uncertainty. Mathematical reasoning strategies aren't just useful for dilemmas involving numbers. We can apply math mindsets to improve our approach to ...

Imagine Jo: Everyone in Jo's life recognizes her as an outstanding problem solver. She's the type of person who seems capable of almost anything. Jo excels at intuitive problem-solving. Over her life, ...

Families might be wondering why their child’s math classroom looks so different from what they remember in school. Why aren’t teachers putting students on the spot and getting them to prove that they ...

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 ...