The future of mathematics education is frequently reduced to a debate over tools. Should students use artificial intelligence? Which digital platform best personalizes practice? How much screen time is too much? The career of Tulika Samal, a mathematics teacher in the District of Columbia Public Schools and a former principal in India, suggests a more grounded answer: the decisive innovation is rarely a single tool. It is the way a teacher connects standards, evidence, classroom culture and access so that every tool has a defined job.
Samal’s interest in the question is not recent. In 2010, years before tablets and learning platforms became routine in schools, she presented a paper at a national conference in India on technology’s role in shaping higher education. The conversation has changed since then. The early question was whether technology belonged in education at all; the current one is how to keep it from crowding out the thinking it was meant to support.
A CLEAR JOB FOR EVERY TOOL
In her classroom at Capitol Hill Montessori at Logan, technology enters through a hybrid-learning approach rather than as a separate program. That distinction matters. Digital tools can deliver fast feedback, dynamic representations and flexible access for students who need more time or a different entry point. They can also fragment attention and substitute clicking for understanding. The practical test is whether a tool can be explained in instructional terms: what it lets students see, try or revise that they could not otherwise. A classroom with fewer devices and a clear reason for each one is more advanced, in any meaningful sense, than one saturated with platforms nobody can justify.
Artificial intelligence sharpens the same test. Tools that generate solutions on demand can be powerful for checking work or exploring variations, but in algebra they can also let a student skip the productive struggle in which structure becomes visible. The teachers best prepared for this moment are not necessarily the most enthusiastic adopters. They are the ones who already ask, of every resource, what learning it is supposed to produce.
DATA AS QUESTIONS, NOT LABELS
Data is the second pillar of the new classroom, and it carries its own risks. Samal’s work involves maintaining student mathematics data alongside behavior trackers and the formal plans that govern special education, disability accommodations and language support. Nearly every American teacher now manages some version of this system. The difference lies in use. Data can harden into labels that follow a student from year to year, or it can generate questions that the next lesson tests. The ethical handling of student information, what to collect, with whom to share it and when to let a first impression expire, is becoming a professional skill in its own right.
This is the emerging center of the field: a shared curriculum combined with varied routes into it. Samal works from a problem-based curriculum aligned with the Common Core, a design that keeps grade-level goals fixed while allowing teachers to vary representation, pacing, grouping and support. The old choice between maintaining rigor and meeting learners where they are is increasingly untenable. Technology and data are useful precisely to the extent that they help teachers hold both commitments at once.
“ A classroom with fewer devices and a clear reason for each one is more advanced than one saturated with platforms nobody can justify“ – Tulika Samal
FROM ONE CLASSROOM TO A WHOLE SCHOOL
Classroom innovation also has a scaling problem, and here Samal’s earlier career is instructive. As principal of Sanskar Public School in Raigarh, she was responsible for curriculum, hiring, teacher orientation and professional learning. From that vantage point, one lesson is hard to miss: school improvement fails when it depends on isolated enthusiasts. A promising method has to be teachable to colleagues, supported by schedules and materials, and reinforced through training. The same holds for any digital initiative. A platform adopted by one teacher is an experiment; a platform adopted by a whole school without shared purpose is usually just an expense.
The field is moving toward a richer definition of professional expertise. Content knowledge remains indispensable, and Samal holds both bachelor’s and master’s degrees in mathematics. But contemporary expertise also includes evaluating software, interpreting dashboards, collaborating with special-education and language-learning specialists, and explaining to families what the numbers do and do not mean. Teacher preparation has been slow to treat these as core competencies rather than add-ons.
WHAT COUNTS AS EVIDENCE
The next frontier is careful documentation. Schools generate abundant information, but useful evidence requires disciplined questions. Which students gained access to grade-level discussion? Which supports built independence rather than dependence? Did enrichment reach students who had not previously seen themselves as capable in mathematics? Did a digital tool change what students understood, or only how quickly they finished tasks? Anonymized cases and implementation notes from practitioners would let peers examine not only what was attempted but why it worked in a particular setting.
This agenda also requires restraint. Not every classroom pattern should become a product, and not every data point should trigger an intervention. Teachers need time to interpret evidence with colleagues and students. Practitioners who have worked across systems, in Samal’s case, two national education systems and roles ranging from classroom teacher to principal, are well placed to exercise that judgment: when to standardize, when to personalize and when to wait for better evidence. That judgment, more than any device, is what the future of the mathematics classroom will depend on.
By John Garcia
Also Read: 7 Proven Strategies to Help Your Child Excel in PSLE Mathematics
