James Tanton Math
Transformative Curriculum Design Infused with Joy and Human Connection
James Tanton (PhD, Princeton) helps educators spark deep understanding and delight in mathematics. With joyful, human-centered curriculum design, he’s reached over 7.9 million learners—and counting.
Hot off the Presses!
New Book! MATH DECODED
Explaining the WHY behind the numbers and how they operate.
Workshops and
Curriculum
Thinking
People typically reach out to me with a broad question, such as:
James! Can you visit our school and help us make trigonometry (or fractions, logarithms, the area model—any school math topic) meaningful and joyful for everyone?
And I do my best to answer YES!
But to be clear, the work we do together will be to roll up our sleeves and do genuine mathematics together. We’ll explore why humans were inspired to engage with the topic in the first place, we’ll strip away the curriculum clutter that obscures the simple, natural, and common-sense thinking behind it, and bring joy, meaning, purpose, ease, and kindness to the student experience.
In short: We won’t just talk about doing math—we’ll do math!
Most Popular Topics:
- Exploding Dots: The story of place value throughout the entire curriculum, and beyond!
- Quadratics: Their algebra and their graphs
- Trigonometry
- Fractions: How to help high schoolers
- Patterns: What to do if you trust them; What to do if you don’t!
- Exponents and Logarithms
- Proportional Reasoning
See my Curriculum Vitae for all the work I have done.
Videos
I have two YouTube channels chock full of curriculum related materials, along general puzzles and delights from the wonders of mathematics.
Current YouTube Channel
Online Resources
Check out:
G’Day Math
Global Math Project
The Great Courses
Featured Books
How Round is a Cube?
A collection of curious mathematical ponderings.
Solve This!
Intriguing math puzzles and activities for students and clubs.
Mathematics Galore!
Essays of curious mathematics—including original student math research.
Avoid Hard Work!
Co-authored with Maria Droujkova and Yelena McManaman — puzzles for the very young.
Without Words
Informal wordless puzzles for folk to mull on while waiting.
Trigonometry
The story of trigonometry with relevant problems from the AMC.
Encyclopedia of Mathematics
Topics from high school through early college.
More Without Words
More of them!
Functions and Graphs
The story of Functions and their Graphs with relevant AMC problems.