Challenge

The use of digital technologies in mathematics education remains inconsistent between schools and classrooms, even though their benefits for developing conceptual understanding, reasoning, and engagement are well-documented. Barriers commonly include a lack of funding, uneven access to digital devices, and, most importantly, limited support to help teachers to understand why and how digital technologies meaningfully enhance mathematical learning.

In response to these long-standing challenges, Professor Cosette Crisan led the development of a three-hour short course, ‘Rethinking mathematics education: Why digital technologies deserve a place in your classroom’.

Solution

The course draws directly on research by IOE academics for the Royal Society’s Mathematical Futures Programme; an initiative seeking to evolve how maths is taught in the UK by guiding policy. In this project, Professors Cosette Crisan, Eirini Geraniou and Jeremy Hodgen. The researchers outlined a 5–10–20-year vision for embedding digital technologies into mathematics education nationally, presented in their report ‘Educational Technologies in Mathematics Education’.

This research underpins the course design, which centres on purposeful integration rather than technical proficiency alone, aligning with current debates around the role of technology in the age of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI).

Designed as a flexible yet coherent learning journey, the course invites teachers to experience firsthand how digital technologies can open up powerful ways of exploring and making sense of mathematical ideas. Through a carefully balanced blend of interactive ‘do’ tasks, reflective ‘think/discuss’ prompts, hands-on activities, and opportunities to work with real digital tools, participants engage with mathematics in dynamic and personally meaningful ways. It is an accessible, fully asynchronous CPD course that can be completed online in three hours, and is hosted on UCL’s Extend platform.

​Rethinking mathematics education: Why digital technologies deserve a place in your classroom 

Rather than beginning with technical skills, the course foregrounds the ‘why’ of digital technology use, its potential to deepen conceptual understanding, support reasoning, enable exploration, and enhance learner agency. Participants first encounter digital technologies as learners themselves before engaging with examples that illustrate how such tools can transform mathematical thinking and classroom practice. A final section offers a practical digital toolbox that teachers can adapt directly to their own contexts.

Grounded in research, the course also responds to contemporary questions about the role of digital technologies in an age shaped by generative AI. It includes both the full Royal Society report and practitioner-friendly adaptations of its recommendations, enabling schools and teachers to use the report as a living, working document to support departmental planning and the purposeful, long-term integration of digital technologies across mathematics teaching.

Impact and results

Early indications suggest that this course is addressing a significant gap in professional learning for mathematics educators. Participants describe feeling more confident in choosing digital technologies to support conceptual understanding and exploratory activity, and more able to articulate the pedagogical reasons for integrating such tools into their teaching. By beginning with teachers’ own experiences of engaging mathematically with digital technologies, the course helps them recognise digital technologies not as an optional extra, but as something that can fundamentally reshape how learners encounter, explore, and make sense of mathematics.

Participants noted its relevance for teachers at different stages of their careers—from non-specialists and early-career teachers to experienced practitioners. The asynchronous format allows participants to engage at a pace that suits them, while the ‘think/discuss’ prompts encourage rich conversations within departments about teaching practices, shared values, and the evolving role of technology in the mathematics classroom.

Because the course is grounded in the Royal Society’s Mathematical Futures Programme, its impact extends beyond immediate classroom practice. It invites them to reflect on the medium- and long-term implications of digital technologies for curriculum design, equity of access, and future-facing pedagogy.

Key facts

  • Department: Curriculum, Pedagogy and Assessment
  • Team members: Professor Cosette Crisan (Course Designer and Academic Lead)
  • Clients: Schools and Multi-Academy Trusts (MATs) seeking high-quality CPD in mathematics education; mathematics teachers; teacher apprentices; teaching assistants; educators across secondary and further education (FE) phases.
  • Project dates: 2023-2025

Links

Image

Tierney via Adobe Stock.