Mathematics education and digital technology – A report from a working group of the JMC

Mathematics education and digital technology – JMC report July 2023

In September 2011, the Joint Mathematical Council of the UK published a report on Digital Technologies and Mathematics Education. Ten years later, the JMC Trustees committed to revisiting and updating this work in the light of changes in education systems, transformations in the availability and uses of digital technologies, and following the impact of the global pandemic.

This 2023 Report, and the JMC Working Group’s activity that preceded it, was motivated by a strong sense that despite the promises of digital technology to enhance mathematics education, and the ongoing transformation of all aspects of modern society by technology, little has changed in the intervening years since the 2011 Report’s publication. Progress against its recommendations has been slow at best.

This new Report presents a high-level synthesis of a working group which was convened through 2022/3. The landscape of digital technology in mathematics education is complex and the Report retains a ‘helicopter view’. Acknowledging that major systemic change is difficult to achieve, we focus on relatively small, achievable recommendations which, if done well, could amount to significant progress in an area where change has been difficult to achieve.