People young and old love the classic video game Tetris. A working knowledge of the spatial reasoning concepts underlying Tetris can set students up for success in mathematics.
Manil Suri, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
Nearly four decades after President Ronald Reagan proclaimed the first National Math Awareness Week, math readiness and enrollment in college math programs continue to decline.
While China has taken steps to rein in the playing of video games among students during the school week, a U.S. scholar makes the case for why the games should be featured more prominently in school.
We’re told jobs requiring science and maths skills are growing faster than others. But industry reports also highlight human skills will be more important in the age of automation.
The proportion of students choosing advanced maths subjects has declined sharply in the last 20 years. Australia also has some of the highest rates of maths teachers outside their field of expertise.
Each year large numbers of college students drop plans to become engineers or scientists because of poor performance in calculus. A new ‘active learning’ approach could help turn things around.
An instant likely feels different to a person, or a redwood, or a gnat. What’s infinitely small for one might be a whole lifetime for another – and that scale influences the choices we make.
More students are taking Advanced Placement calculus in high school. They may be learning techniques for solving certain problems at the expense of the mathematical foundations they need to advance.