New analysis of US elementary school mathematics finds half-century of problematic 'strands' structure
Tuesday, October 15, 2013 - 11:31
in Mathematics & Economics
During the "New Math" movement of the 1960s, a team of mathematicians developed a new structure for elementary mathematics. Instead of having a single subject, namely, school arithmetic, as its central core, this new structure instead had eight "strands" that were supposed to tie together elementary mathematics content. The strands structure has persisted to this day. In an article in the November 2013 issue of the Notices of the American Mathematical Society, Liping Ma argues that the strands structure has significantly weakened U.S. school mathematics.