Math-ish: Finding Creativity, Diversity, and Meaning in Mathematics

Jo Boaler. HarperOne, $28.99 (304p) ISBN 978-0-06-334080-0

This niche analysis from Boaler (Limitless Minds), an education professor at Stanford University, explores strategies for improving how students learn math. Rather than insisting students learn rigid rules from repetitive worksheets, Boaler advocates for math teachers to encourage creative thinking and incorporate open-ended questions and group exercises. Academic studies bolster the advice. For instance, Boaler details an experiment that found first-year college physics students who solved problems as a group and then discussed their work after receiving teacher feedback performed significantly better than peers who learned only from standard lectures. Students should be shown a diverse range of examples that include nonstandard cases, Boaler contends, describing how students at a U.K. high school who were asked to think about loci (she defines locus as “a particular point, position, or place and usually extended to include all the points on a plane that are a certain distance away from a specific place”) in relation to triangles, squares, and madeup shapes, in addition to the usual circles and ovals, achieved higher test scores than a comparison cohort. Most strikingly, the changes Boaler promotes show promise in eliminating the racial and gender imbalances that have plagued mathematics instruction for generations. Though the bevy of cartoons illustrating instruction methods strives to keep the proceedings light, this is unlikely to hold appeal outside of education circles. Still, math teachers will find much of use. Illus. (May)