Discovery: How Is It Most Effective to Teach Math?

If students are to discover the empowerment and usefulness of math, “there has to be a parallel between the experiences we provide our future teachers and the learning we expect them to be equipped to go out and cultivate in classrooms,” says Jill Baxter. “That’s where the setting becomes so important to the success of learning. If our students sit in fixed chairs in a lecture hall without tools to manipulate and, thus, model their thinking, then they’re limited in the mathematical activities that they can explore to spark logical reasoning, use of strategy, or how to apply math to everyday instances.”

By replacing traditional lecture rooms with specialized teaching spaces designed to help faculty members such as Baxter teach a full range of math proficiency, the UO College of Education has the potential to help “turn mathematics from one of the most dreaded classroom experiences to one of the most engaging and rewarding—ensuring that the next generation can step with confidence into the technological world of the twenty-first century.”2

2 “On the Shoulders of Giants: New Approaches to Numeracy,” Mathematical Sciences Education Board, National Research Council, National Academy Press, Washington, D.C., 1990.