It was at the University of Michigan that Albert Bennett and L. Ted Nelson and their families first met. Bennett and Nelson had been invited to participate in a National Science Foundation sponsored program of graduate studies in mathematics. Ten years later while on sabbaticals at the University of Oregon they collaborated in writing lessons to actively involve prospective teachers in learning the mathematical concepts they would be teaching. These lessons eventually led to the publication of the first editions of Mathematics for Elementary Teachers: A Conceptual Approach and Mathematics for Elementary Teachers: An Activity Approach.

Albert Bennett completed his undergraduate and masters degrees at the University of Maine in Orono. He taught mathematics at Gorham State College and became active in the summer mathematics institutes that were sponsored by the Association of Teachers of Mathematics in New England. An early bias that was reflected in his teaching of these institutes was the need to encourage intuition in the teaching and learning of mathematics. He received his doctorate in mathematics from the University of Michigan in 1966 and joined the mathematics faculty at the University of New Hampshire to teach mathematics to prospective teachers. There he organized a mathematics lab and started writing laboratory activities for teachers. In the next few years his efforts led to the publication of Fraction Bars, Decimal Squares, and articles and textbooks for elementary and middle school teachers. These publications support methods of using models and concrete materials in the teaching of mathematics.