Three‐component mathematics for students

Abstract There has been a long‐standing debate on situational and symbolic mathematics, which is associated with how to design and execute mathematics education for all students. Brain studies can give some clues for how to deal with the debate. There are situational, verbalized, and visuospatial brain networks and the connectivity among the networks, which suggest the representation of mathematical knowledge should be situational, verbalized, and symbolic. Moreover, the representation should be mapped onto one another. Previous studies have shown the importance of situational and verbalized mathematics, but they are typically treated as preliminary and auxiliary introductions for formal symbolic mathematics. Each of the three mathematics types and their mapping would be the core learning goal in mathematics education.