WHERE ARE OUR STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES

Research  and current studies show that students in the United States are better at interpreting mathematical results than they are at formulating a real-world problem into mathematics. That is, they have weaknesses in items that require higher cognitive functions,  such as being able to taking real-world situations and translating and interpreting them in mathematical terms. They do better in cognitively less-demanding mathematical skills
and abilities, such as extracting single values from diagrams or handling well-structured formulas. This is a serious issue since we expect our students to be able to function in the real world. What is the use of education if the concepts taught cannot be applied in life? We need a better way of impacting knowledge to this generation.

Students are better at reading and extracting information from given data and diagrams than they are at geometry. Doing science requires some spatial recognition skills. If we are able to improve in this area, we will improve in our scientific abilities as well. The focus should be on algebra and mathematical modeling of real world situation without neglecting basic math concepts.