You can probably think of a time when you’ve used math to solve an everyday problem, such as calculating a tip at a restaurant or determining the square footage of a room. But what role does math play ...

Math is the sum of its parts, and it adds on itself. What does that mean? It means that multiplication is just repeated addition. And that mastering the times tables will help students simplify ...

Students often struggle to connect math with the real world. Word problems—a combination of words, numbers, and mathematical operations—can be a perfect vehicle to take abstract numbers off the page.

In September 2019, news broke regarding progress on this 82-year-old question, thanks to prolific mathematician Terence Tao. And while the story of Tao’s breakthrough is promising, the problem isn’t ...

A key part—though surely not the only part—of early-grades math is ensuring students get the basic arithmetic functions down and, beyond that, making sure they’re able to swiftly and automatically ...

As a student, AI has been most helpful for me in my study sessions. Before everyone comes at me, I don’t mean using AI to cheat my way through exams or have it solve entire assignments for me. Instead ...

This story originally appeared in the February 2025 issue of Texas Monthly as part of our public-education feature, “What Our Schools Actually Need.” Humans have been learning math for thousands of ...