Challenging the status quo in mathematics: Teaching for understanding

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(THE CONVERSATION) Despite decades of reform efforts, mathematics teaching in the U.S. has changed little in the last century.

Several state and national reform efforts have tried to improve things.

[...] within a particular lesson, it makes the math seem easier, and students who are successful at getting the right answers find this kind of teaching to be very satisfying.

[...] learning the relationship between area and volume can help students understand how to interpret what the volume means once it’s been calculated.

[...] building relationships between how to solve a problem and why it’s solved that way helps students use what they already know to solve new problems that they face.

Students with a truly conceptual understanding can see how methods emerged from multiple interconnected ideas; their relationship to the solution goes deeper than rote drilling.

Conceptual understanding is a key ingredient to helping people think mathematically and use mathematics outside of a classroom.

If we really want to improve America’s mathematics education, we need to rethink both our education system and our teaching methods, and perhaps to consider how other countries approach mathematics instruction.

Renowned education expert Pasi Sahlberg is a former mathematics and physics teacher from Finland.