We need to be better at maths - and the suggestion that only smart people can be good with numbers is holding a lot of us back.

This free course, Teaching secondary mathematics, will identify and explore some of the key issues around teaching mathematics in secondary schools. Through coming to understand these issues and debates, you will reflect on and develop your practice as a mathematics teacher and develop a greater awareness of the wider context of mathematics education and how this affects mathematics in the secondary school curriculum.

This article is part of a collection produced for Valentine’s Day. Who would you select for your Valentine from these iconic figures from history? 

What does mathematics have to do with nature or art? The video tracks in this album trace the origin of the mathematics of chaos and describe how the chance discovery of fractals became the basis for some real - and revolutionary - commercial applications such as the fax and the modem. A closer look at ancient fabric designs and the spiral of a nautilus shell also reveals repeating patterns that can be analysed in a mathematical way. This material forms part of The Open University course MS221 Exploring mathematics.

Test your problem-solving skills and try to crack our secret messages using clues.

This free course, Scholarship of Teaching
and Learning in STEM, provides a toolkit for conducting Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) within Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM). SoTL involves educators using their disciplinary knowledge to investigate a question about learning and teaching, gather evidence in a systematic way, submit their findings for peer review and make the findings public for others to build upon. The course will help you plan,
conduct, and evaluate a SoTL inquiry. In this video Diane Butler, Associate Dean (Academic Excellence), Faculty of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, The Open University, welcomes you to the course.

Maths is intimately entwined with science and technology, whether it is used to analyse data collected on plants in the Amazon rainforest, to calculate the trajectory of a comet or design a bridge to connect two countries. This means that science and technology go hand-in-hand with maths, and that a firm grasp of maths is crucial for studying any science and technology discipline.
This free course, Maths for science and technology, will help you build a stronger grip with the maths helping hand. You’ll learn about how the power of algebra, the sense of scientific notation, the beauty of basic trigonometry and why 70 db (decibels) is 10 times more powerful than 60 db. As well as this you will delve into scientific measurement, including the importance of units and the flexibility and practically of the SI – the internationally recognised system of units based on multiples of ten.

The restless Universe introduces you to major achievements and figures in the history of physics, from Copernicus to Einstein and beyond. The route from classical to quantum physics will be laid out for you in this free course without recourse to challenging mathematics but with the fundamental features of theories and discoveries described in sufficient detail to whet your appetite for further physics study.

How to avoid mistakes when calculating ratios and proportions? Complete our everyday maths activity to find out more.