“Improving students’ learning of mathematics” is the major focus for my research. In this talk, I will draw on three lines of research (cross-national studies, longitudinal studies of curriculum effect on students’ learning, and longitudinal studies of teachers learning to teach through problem posing on students’ learning and teachers’ teaching) to show the importance of having mathematics at the front of research. In particular, I will discuss the lessons learned from the three lines of research in the past several decades about how to improve students’ learning of mathematics. I will close with a discussion of how mathematics education research related to student assessment, classroom instruction, curriculum, and teacher professional learning can center around the mathematics for students to learn.

Bio

Jinfa Cai is the Kathleen and David Hollowell Professor at the University of Delaware, and a Fellow of American Educational Research Association. He served as the Editor-in-Chief for the Journal for Research in Mathematics Education (2017-2020). He also served as Program Director at the USA National Science Foundation. He is the Editor of the 2017 Compendium for Research in Mathematics Education (NCTM). In 2017, Jinfa received the University of Delaware’s College of Arts and Sciences’ Outstanding Scholarship Award, which is historical for an education researcher to receive such a prestigious award. Jinfa loves reading, travel, and scholarly collaboration.