School mathematics teaching is stuck in the past. An adult revisiting the school that they attended as a child would see only superficial changes from what they experienced themselves.
Yes, in some schools they might see a room full of electronic tablets, or the teacher using a touch-sensitive, interactive whiteboard. But if we zoom in on the details – the tasks that students are actually being given to help them make sense of the subject – things have hardly changed at all.
We’ve learnt a huge amount in recent years about cognitive science – how our brains work and how people learn most effectively. This understanding has the potential to revolutionise what teachers do in classrooms. But the design of mathematics teaching materials, such as textbooks, has benefited very little from this knowledge.
Some of this knowledge is counter-intuitive, and therefore unlikely to be applied unless done so deliberately. What learners prefer to experience, and what teachers think is likely to be most effective, often isn’t what will help the most.
