Instead, and against all expectations, they were much more likely to transfer their skills if they were taught with abstract rules and symbols. The use of concrete, real-world examples is a deeply ...

Mathematics, as opposed to simple counting, is the study of patterns and relationships using logical reasoning and abstract concepts. The ancient Sumerians developed the concepts of arithmetic ...

After learning this math concept using the concrete examples or abstract, generic symbols, the students took a multiple-choice quiz demonstrating that they learned the principles involved.

A version of this article appeared in the May 14, 2025 edition of Education Week as Math Gets Progressively More Abstract. Here’s How to Help Students Keep Up. From the Special Report.

Teaching practices in India fail to teach school students strategies to do mathematics in real-world settings, according to findings from a study titled Children’s arithmetic skills do not ...

Except they don't really work. A new study shows that far from easily grasping mathematical concepts, students who are fed a diet of real-world problems fail to apply their knowledge to new situations ...