Students often struggle to connect math with the real world. Word problems—a combination of words, numbers, and mathematical operations—can be a perfect vehicle to take abstract numbers off the page.

One of my first vivid memories of math is of timed tests. I still remember how visceral my panic felt–sweaty palms, heart pounding–as I scrambled to recall facts before the clock ran out. You might ...

A defining memory from my senior year of high school was a nine-hour math exam with just six questions. Six of the top scorers won slots on the U.S. team for the International Math Olympiad (IMO), the ...