AERDF Announces Outcomes of Five-Year R&D Effort on Math and Executive Functioning Skills

The new EF+Math Resource Library will feature evidence-based tools, research, and resources on improving math learning by strengthening students' executive functioning skills.

OAKLAND, Calif., Feb. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- The Advanced Education Research & Development Fund (AERDF), a national nonprofit focused on addressing pressing education challenges, today announced new innovations and learnings from its EF+Math program, a five-year research and development initiative focused on transforming mathematics education. Key highlights of the investment include scaled and commercialized products that are actively used in schools today, new professional development resources for educators, tools for conducting inclusive R&D, and scientific research findings that have advanced the field's understanding of how students learn math. Today, AERDF is launching a new, public EF+Math Resource Library, a comprehensive collection of products, tools, research findings, and frameworks emerging from the collective effort of more than 700 educators, researchers, and developers.

The announcement comes as executive functioning (EF) skills – including working memory, planning, cognitive flexibility, and metacognition – are increasingly recognized as critical to helping K–12 students tackle rigorous math concepts. In fact, 88% of teachers report wanting sustained, actionable professional development on EF skills to better support students in learning challenging math concepts.

AERDF's new EF+Math Resource Library showcases the impact of AERDF's approach to education R&D. It includes evidence-based math products; insights and tools for educators, researchers, and developers to support students in leveraging their EF skills in math; and research findings for others to use to improve math education. The comprehensive public repository ensures that the innovations developed and the knowledge generated through the EF+Math program continue to have an impact long into the future.

The EF+Math program was created to examine whether strengthening students' executive functioning skills, skills that help students manage their thoughts, emotions, attention, and behavior, could dramatically improve student math outcomes. It is the first R&D program that AERDF invested in, and it will be completing its five-year funding cycle this spring.

"The EF+Math program was designed from the start to create a lasting impact beyond its planned five-year funding cycle." said Auditi Chakravarty, AERDF CEO. "EF+Math developed research publications that provide blueprints for the field, a research community advancing these ideas, and methodologies so others can build upon this foundation. The EF+Math Resource Library is a dynamic hub that ensures the program's evidence, tools, and equity-centered practices will continue to guide innovation and reach math classrooms across the country."

The program brought together educators, researchers, and developers to simultaneously create evidence-based math learning products and to deepen the field's understanding of the relationship between students' EF skills and math learning.

"We believe that all students, and especially Black and Latino students and students experiencing poverty, bring mathematical brilliance to the classroom and are capable of learning challenging math," said Michelle Tiu, Co-Executive Director of AERDF's EF+Math Program. "EF+Math's goal was to dramatically improve math outcomes by strengthening executive function skills and creating equitable math learning experiences for students in grades 3-8."

Throughout the process, educators' and students' voices were centered, allowing real-world classrooms to shape the work.

"This inclusive, coordinated approach to R&D made this program more effective," said Aubrey Francisco, Co-Executive Director of AERDF's EF+Math Program. "Often, solutions are developed based on assumptions about what teachers and students need. At EF+Math, we intentionally brought together educators, researchers, and developers to co-create tools grounded in both classroom wisdom and learning science. That collaboration resulted in both products that are supporting students' EF and math learning in classrooms, and new insights that can guide future R&D." 

Highlights from AERDF's EF+Math program include:

• New Math Learning Products that integrate EF skill development with mathematics instruction, affirm student identities, and deliver measurable learning improvements. New products have been supported by the R&D investment, such as CueThinkEF+, a problem-solving program that has been acquired and scaled commercially; Fraction Ball, a basketball-inspired game to help students learn fractions; and MIND Education's MathFluency+ and InsightMath, a novel approach and core curriculum designed to maximize student's cognitive capacity for math learning.
• New Research Insights & Tools, including peer-reviewed studies, culturally responsive assessment measures, and research instruments that deepen scientific understanding of how EF skills, equity, and math learning intersect.
• New Framework and Toolkit for Conducting Inclusive R&D that includes lessons learned from the EF+Math Community's approach to centering educator and student voices, practical tools for conducting inclusive R&D, and candid reflections on building collaborative research teams.
• New Professional Learning for Educators offering flexible resources for teachers and coaches to implement equitable, evidence-based math instruction. These ready-to-use professional development modules will help teachers support students in leveraging their EF skills to learn math. 
• EF+Math Community Stories featuring the voices of educators, researchers, students, and partners who co-created this work and are now carrying it forward.

Learn more: The program's new website with resources for researchers, educators, and developers on EF skills and math education is available at: efmathprogram.org.

Join our webinar: AERDF will host an EF+Math webinar, "Collective Learning, Lasting Impact: The EF+Math Resource Library," on March 3 at 1 p.m. PT to share highlights of the work, findings, and resources on EF skills and math education. Register here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/efmath-resource-library-launch-webinar-tickets-1981873153954

About AERDF
Advanced Education Research & Development Fund (AERDF, sounds like air-diff) is a national nonprofit that harnesses the power of education research and development (R&D) to unlock scientific discoveries and deliver research-backed inventions to address the most pressing challenges in teaching and learning. AERDF's R&D programs (multi-year initiatives) – EF+Math, Assessment for Good, Reading Reimagined, and AugmentED – produce scientific knowledge, technical advancements, and scalable, classroom-ready prototypes that are evidence-based, demonstrate impact, and catalyze transformative improvements across our nation. AERDF's AdvancED Fellowship accelerates visionary leaders and their ideas with a unique experience to dare to dream about how to advance the state of the art in education. Learn more at https://aerdf.org. 

SOURCE Advanced Education Research & Development Fund