Math(s) Fix, The: An Education Blueprint of the AI Age (Paperback)

Winner, Education–Independent Press Award 2021
Why are we all taught maths for years of our lives? Does it really empower everyone? Or fail most and disenfranchise many? Is it crucial for the AI age or an obsolete rite of passage?

The Math(s) Fix: An Education Blueprint for the AI Age is a groundbreaking book that exposes why maths education is in crisis worldwide and how the only fix is a fundamentally new mainstream subject. It argues that today's maths education is not working to elevate society with modern computation, data science and AI. Instead, students are subjugated to compete with what computers do best, and lose.

This is the only book to explain why being bad at maths may be as much the subject s fault as the learners: how a stuck educational ecosystem has students, parents, teachers, schools, employers and policymakers running in the wrong direction to catch up with real-world requirements. But it goes further too for the first time setting out a completely alternative vision for a core computational school subject to fix the problem and seed more general reformation of education for the AI age.

Contents

Preface

Part I: The Problem
· Maths v. Maths
· Why Should Everyone Learn Maths?
· Maths and Computation in Today's World
· The 4-Step Maths/Computational Thinking Process
· Hand Calculating: Not the Essence of Maths

Part II: The Fix
· "Thinking" Outcomes
· Defining the Core Computational Subject
· New Subject, New Pedagogy?
· What to Deliver? How to Build It?

Part III: Achieving Change
· Objections to Computer-Based Core Computational Learning
· Roadmap for Change
· The Beginning of the Story
· Is Computation for Everything?
· What's Surprised Me on This Journey So Far
· Call to Action

Appendices

Index

Conrad Wolfram is cofounder and CEO of Wolfram Research Europe. Over the last 30 years he has been a key part of the technology transformation that has brought maths, computation and data science to the forefront of today's world and moved us towards the 4th industrial revolution. Conrad regularly appears in the media to speak about subjects ranging from the computational future and artificial intelligence to 21st-century education. His team's work to build a solution started in 2010 when computerbasedmath.org was founded this book being a key milestone in the journey to fundamental reform.