I characterise the computational or maths process as 4 step. (If you haven’t come across this central theme of The Math(s) Fix before, here’s a quick description). And the central problem with our mainstream maths education has been the failure to recognise that step 3—compute—has been almost completely taken over by computers in real life…and that totally changes the what, when and how.
Read MoreTMF day has finally arrived. After more than 15 years of conceptualising the idea, 10 years of build-out and 2 years of writing and editing, I have assembled “The Math(s) Fix: An Education Blueprint for the AI Age” or TMF for short and thrown it out to the world today in ink and e-ink.
Read MoreFor once I'm not talking about the contents of school maths but the name and its associations.
The question I'm asking is if our core technical subject wasn't termed "maths" but "nicebrand" would things go better in and out of education?
Sadly, I've started to conclude the answer is yes. I now suspect that using the brand of maths is damaging core technical education, its reform, and efforts to equip society for the AI age.
Believe me, this is not the conclusion I want. I've spent years of my life somehow connected with the word "maths". But much as I might not like my conclusion, I want the essence of subject maths to succeed; so I don't want the name to kill the subject—a much worse outcome.
Read MoreEarlier this week I was part of a high-level discussion about maths and computer science education, how we could improve their reach and effectiveness. Rather quickly the question of evidence came up, and its role in driving innovation.
It's taken me a few days to realise that there were actually two very different "importance of evidence" conversations--one with which I completely concur, and one with which I vehemently disagree. In the end, what I believe this exposes is a failure of many in charge of education to understand how major innovation usually happens--whether innovation in science, technology, business or education--and how "evidence" can drive effective innovation rather than stifle it. In an age of massive real-world change, the correct and rapid reflection of this in education is crucial to future curricula, their effective deployment, and achieving optimisation for the right educational outcomes.
Read MoreToday's maths PISA results are predictable in the successes that many Asian countries show and the mediocrity of many of the traditional Western countries--like the UK.
I believe PISA is meticulous in conducting its tests and reflects a good evaluation of standards of today's maths education. And yet I think if countries like the UK simply try to climb up today's PISA assessment, they'd be doing the wrong thing.
Read MoreI was very excited at our CBM summit this morning with Eben Upton to announce that Mathematica will be bundled on the Raspberry Pi computer for free, and so will the new Wolfram Language--also announced today.
This really has at least 4-dimensions of consequence:
Read MoreFixing maths education is becoming ever more central to individual life-chances and our societal needs.
So I am very pleased that we're able to collaborate with UNICEF on our 3rd CBM summit, holding it at their headquarters in New York City on November 21-22.
Read MoreI was debating Computer-Based Maths education (CBM) with a sceptic before the summer and he brought up the analogy of music education to support various claims he was making of maths.
As I understood his central point it was that practising hand calculations is akin to practising music pieces--it's simply the way to learn to play. Also there was some attempt to draw the analogy between listening to music and CBM, whereas playing was like traditional hand-calculating maths.
Read MoreI'm very excited to announce that computerbasedmath.org has found the first country ready for our completely new kind of maths education: it's Estonia. (...and here's the press release).
I thought Estonia could be first. They are very active on using technology (first to publish cabinet decisions immediately online, first to include programming in their mainstream curriculum), have ambition to improve their (already well respected) STEM aptitude and lack the dogma and resistance to change of many larger countries. There aren't so many countries with all those characteristics.
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