Tina Rapke, an Assistant Professor York University’s Faculty of Education, is thrilled to see that curriculum reforms focus on “mental math” and that there is a mention of the “emotional” aspect — the anxiety students can experience.
“I’m very happy to see the focus on mental math,” says Rapke.“We have research that has recommendations … and it talks about proven teaching methods in terms of fundamentals or basic arithmetic — addition, subtraction, multiplication, division. But it hasn’t really made it to the classroom.”