Why students struggle in math and how to fix it with Barbara Oakley and John Mighton (Ep 61)

About this episode

Anna Stokke discusses math education challenges and solutions with Barbara Oakley and John Mighton.

In this episode, Anna is joined by two familiar guests, mathematician and founder of JUMP Math, Dr. John Mighton, and learning expert and bestselling author Dr. Barbara Oakley. They discuss their new Coursera course, Making Math Click: Understanding Math Without Fear, what learning science reveals about how students learn math, and why practice and worked examples play such a critical role in building math confidence. They discuss schemas, give some cautionary advice about using manipulatives and concrete-pictorial-abstract approaches, and explain why moving quickly from concrete to abstract matters. They describe what’s at stake when math education fails, what’s lost when students don’t develop foundational skills, and what it will take to help more learners succeed in math. This is a practical, engaging, and insightful episode for teachers, parents, university students, and anyone who has ever felt they weren’t a math person. This episode is also available in video at www.youtube.com/@chalktalk-stokke Making Math Click: Understand Math Without Fear: Free course with certificate: https://www.coursera.org/learn/math-click?action=showPartnerSupportedAccess TIMESTAMPS [00:00:22]…

People in this episode

Host: Anna Stokke

Guests: Barbara Oakley, John Mighton

Topics covered

• math education
• learning science
• math confidence
• foundational skills
• teaching strategies

Keywords

• math struggle
• learning strategies
• education
• confidence in math
• foundational skills

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Coursera, JUMP Math

Products: Making Math Click: Understanding Math Without Fear

More episodes of Chalk & Talk

• Mailbag I: Choosing math resources and handling mixed classes with Jon Regino · June 12, 2026 · 41 min
• Inside one of England’s top-performing non-selective schools with Robert Peal (Ep 72) · May 29, 2026 · 1h 3m
• Conviction vs. evidence: What’s driving math education’s worst policies with Thomas Briggs and David Shuck (Ep 71) · May 15, 2026 · 1h 3m
• What to do when “Research Shows” shuts you down: A guide for parents and teachers (Ep 70) · May 1, 2026 · 23 min
• We know more about teaching than ever—so why is change so slow? with Joanna Barbousas (Ep 69) · April 17, 2026 · 1h 2m
• The Finland myth, East Asia’s rise, and what makes education systems work with Montserrat Gomendio (Ep 68) · April 3, 2026 · 1h 9m