I think fear about the difficulty in learning a subject like mathematics or physics, keeps many students away. This may be due to lack of experienced teachers that make the subject more interesting. If learning a subject is made a pleasurable experience, students will not only will be attracted but also be interested in that subject. Lack of sufficient online sites about mathematics learning may be another reason. In history one needs to remember dates, events, names etc. In biology the students can see and learn. In chemistry practicals are interesting. Mathematics requires imagination and a teacher who can ignite the imagination of the students is crucial. Text books with illustrations and examples also help. Videos practically demonstrating how mathematical theory works are useful.

A teacher plays greater role in imparting the mathematical skills to a student.

The teacher should inculcate interest in mathematics by teaching concepts and applications of mathematics.

This should include real life examples.

Communication is the key. Just like any subject, unless the students and the teacher understand each other, no learning will happen. I believe that teachers must learn  how to teach students the language of mathematics, making them realize that it is just like any ordinary language that can be used easily anytime and that it is a language not much different from the ones they are born.

Only when there is communication that students be able to understand what is being taught them and consequently do what is being asked of them to do.

Teaching mathematics requires several things. skill of communication, to make mathematics reasonable to life, to science and engineering  so that they appreciate and be motivated and to let them know and in fact discover by themselves that mathematics is everywhere, it is ubiquitous,  all creatures of nature do it let alone a thinking human being.

After all these motivations,  encouraging statements and facts, the real learning of mathematics is accomplished only from doing mathematics, not by watching or listening someone doing it. Students should know that they have to make paper,  pen and fingers meet to do mathematics with a cognizant mind from above in order to precisely know and retain what they have done.

Retention of concepts in mathematics learning is also very fundamental to built a knowledge of mathematical structure in our brain. In order to built a good house building bricks should stick to where they have to be in order to add new ones on them to rise the house to a completion.    

I think fear about the difficulty in learning a subject like mathematics or physics, keeps many students away. This may be due to lack of experienced teachers that make the subject more interesting. If learning a subject is made a pleasurable experience, students will not only will be attracted but also be interested in that subject. Lack of sufficient online sites about mathematics learning may be another reason. In history one needs to remember dates, events, names etc. In biology the students can see and learn. In chemistry practicals are interesting. Mathematics requires imagination and a teacher who can ignite the imagination of the students is crucial. Text books with illustrations and examples also help. Videos practically demonstrating how mathematical theory works are useful.

I think we need to understand that teaching and learning are actually two different and distinct things. Pedagogies and methodologies used to enhance teaching are more often teacher centric while those for learning are student centric. Having said this, mathematics as I believe is the core of sciences and should follow a more learner (student) centric method.

I am currently carrying out a research where I developed an elearning product called studylab. What we believe is that the more students practice solving mathematical problems using methods taught in the classroom, the more they understand and remember these methods. The issue is that when they are out of the classroom however and on their own, they do not have the opportunity of getting immediate feedback. Where did they go wrong? What mistakes were made in the steps taken and so on. What studylab offers is the ability to have this feedback so they can retrace their steps and understand where they went wrong and then solve the problem. Attached to this is a link to studylab demo where you can see how this works.

So to answer your question, I think to get students to understand and effectively learn mathematics, our approach has to be more student/learner centric and not just classroom focused. On the average, humans lose effective concentration periodically over about 35 minutes, so the classroom environment is not 100% effective, although it is an integral part of the learning process. We need to encourage learners to practice, make it more of fun than a chore, and also provide rich immediate feedback. I believe this will greatly help in cementing the learning process.

I am aware much insights have been gotten in the propagation of game based learning as well. You may want to look in that direction also. I hope this helps.

http://studylab.insightafrica.com.ng/demo/

By practice only ... !

Dear Colleagues,

Good Day,

There are some things  that Instructors can do in their classes to assist students in assuming responsibility for their learning and in becoming more effective learners:   

• Emphasize the importance of good study skills to student success
• Inform students of the knowledge, skills and study behaviors that will help them to be successful in your class
• Help students assess their study skills strengths and weaknesses (include learning style preferences)
• Provide students with information resources for study skills development
• Give students clear directions and frequent opportunities for progress assessment and feedback on class work.

Please, see the following websites for more information"

http://www.interventioncentral.org/academic-interventions/math/school-wide-strategies-managing-mathematics

http://www.mathgoodies.com/articles/improve_your_grades.html

http://www.edutopia.org/stw-differentiated-instruction-budget-assessment-how-to

https://www.ber.org/onsite/course.cfm?CR=MCC

This is a nice and interesting quotation:

“Can you do addition?” the White Queen asked. “What’s one and one

and one and one and one and one and one and one and one and one?”

“I don’t know,” said Alice. “I lost count.”

             —Lewis Carroll  ,  Through the Looking Glass

Developing good study habits helps students to:

• Take responsibility for the learning process
• Set practical goals
• Be aware of performance and progress
• Use time wisely
• Understand and retain content

Simply put, students with good study habits achieve better grades and are more successful in their classes

Dear All,

Ok Aurea , communication is the solution.

Also, it is the role of the teacher in the acquisition of mathematical skills for a student.

Dear Dr. Sudev,

Practise, practise and practise. 

Best is to work in groups and practise since the skills are transferable. 

Good emplopyment opportunities are available for maths students.  The new data-driven market makes math skills, particularly statistics, more and more valuable to employers. Many companies now collect large datasets on consumer behavior, be it online search patterns or user demographics

https://www.sbcc.edu/mathematics/website/weekzero.pdf

I think first I encourage dtudents to like mathematics and spend more time learning the concepts thoroughly.

Dear @Sudev, teach them critical thinking in order to acquire mathematical skills effectively. 

Dear Sudev,

your question is very interesting.

Here you have two contributions about the same Italian pre-university educational experience:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/279530325_Mathematical_Education_in_the_Italian_Project_FSTF

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/273764876_The_educational_project_FSTF_in_Latina

I hope they could be somehow useful to enrich the discussion.

Best wishes!

Conference Paper Mathematical Education in the Italian Project FSTF

Technical Report The educational project FSTF in Latina

An interesting question indeed. Being an Afrikaans language teacher for many years, I was quite shocked when my daughter told me in Grade 12 that their teacher is so clever, they do not understand him. I believe Mathematics can be made easy if children learn in the first place to love mathematics, therefore I agree with previous comments. I also believe that it should be practiced, but in groups. Giving them problems and solve, and tell them that we are sure that they can do it. I much too often hear maths teachers telling their kids that it is difficult, and that they will not be able to master it. They believe what we tell them, don't they? We all know that it is difficult to write essays, yet language teachers cannot tell it to the kids - or they will not try to write essays. So, as in the case of eating an elephant, I believe it should be done piece by little piece, showing them the whole as well as the parts, allowing them to experience the problems and helping them to understand how the detail fits into the bigger picture ....

Mathematical skills are much needed in other disciplines such as chemistry, physics...etc.. Students ought to be convinced, by giving them examples, about the value of mathematics in real applications in solving problems & in understanding various topics relevant to daily life. An easy approach is adopted initially and then followed by climbing the ladder in stepwise manner. Every now & then, challenging questions are asked in order to motivate the students to become more keen on learning. The student, who shows readiness to answer a tough question, ought to be awarded with praising at least; sometimes a word of encouragement can make wonders in activating the learning process. Add to it the basic fact that practice leads to perfection.

Sudev:

Digital learners today are preoccupied with digital games, but we do not use these enough to teach them the more difficult subjects like Math. However, research shows that digital Math games help to enhance their performance in Math:

 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/273400769_Cognitive_abilities_digital_games_and_arithmetic_performance_enhancement_A_study_comparing_the_effects_of_a_math_game_and_paper_exercises

I extend best wishes for every success in your research!

Debra

Article Cognitive abilities, digital games and arithmetic performanc...

Here is the paper where author has different opinion generally about games and their impact on learning. 

"This paper criticizes the argument that video games by their nature are good learning environments. By applying the ecological approach to perception and learning to examples of game play, the paper shows that games can be designed so that players are able to

see and utilize affordances without developing skills. Compared to other practices, gaming demands less learning of the practitioner since progress can be built into the system. Contrary to the arguments put forth by James Paul Gee in his book What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy, this paper comes to the conclusion that good games do not necessarily imply good learning. "

Mastering Essential Math Skills: 20 Minutes a Day to Success

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6m8vL887nE

Dear Ljubomir,

Good points and references as always. Indeed games are activities which will be perfected by over playing without knowing the intricacies that are put on the creation of the games and even with no new challenge that has never been played before. Therefore they are more of detrimental to the intricacies of abstract thinking  and what we call learning. The same thing is true in using calculators for begginers of learning arithmetic. We do not let them use calculators to learn arithmetic instead they have to do with their heads in order the process of learning and computational skills to take place.