Clarification: This story has been updated to clarify how University of Colorado researchers handle their data collection. A student digs into a math problem that references his favorite superhero, ...

Students often struggle to connect math with the real world. Word problems—a combination of words, numbers, and mathematical operations—can be a perfect vehicle to take abstract numbers off the page.

Imagine you’re a character in a math problem. You have three platters, but two cakes. All three platters need to have the same amount of cake. How would you split it? Without even saying the word ...