Five Math Education Misconceptions That Are Holding Students Back
Report | American Enterprise Institute
- Several popular ideas in math education are unsupported by high-quality evidence, used at the wrong stage of learning, or harmful to student learning.
- Among these are five common instructional practices: teaching multiple strategies for the same operation before students have mastered one reliable method, allowing technology to replace foundational knowledge and procedural skills, delaying the teaching of procedures until conceptual understanding is secure, teaching primarily through student-led problem-solving, and avoiding repetitive practice.
- Effective math teaching supports new learners through clear, explicit instruction.
Introduction
Math education is plagued with superficially appealing phrases and ideas that aren’t aligned with how students learn. Many students find math difficult or think they are incapable of doing it. Ideas marketed as quick fixes or ways to avoid the hard work necessary for learning math are therefore often attractive to educators and students.
Despite their appeal, many of the most popular ideas in math education are unsupported by high-quality evidence, are applied at the wrong stage of learning, or work against learning.
Here are five popular ideas in math education that should be reconsidered and abandoned.
