Rethinking Mathematics

Rethinking Mathematics
Author: Eric Gutstein
Publisher: Rethinking Schools
Total Pages: 192
Release: 2005
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 0942961544

In this unique collection, more than 30 articles show how to weave social justice issues throughout the mathematics curriculum, as well as how to integrate mathematics into other curricular areas. Rethinking Mathematics offers teaching ideas, lesson plans, and reflections by practitioners and mathematics educators. This is real-world math-math that helps students analyze problems as they gain essential academic skills. This book offers hope and guidance for teachers to enliven and strengthen their math teaching. It will deepen students' understanding of society and help prepare them to be critical, active participants in a democracy. Blending theory and practice, this is the only resource of its kind.

STEM the Tide

STEM the Tide
Author: David E. Drew
Publisher: JHU Press
Total Pages: 260
Release: 2011-10-01
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1421403412

Proven strategies for reforming STEM education in America’s schools, colleges, and universities. One study after another shows American students ranking behind their international counterparts in the STEM fields—science, technology, engineering, and math. Businesspeople and cultural critics such as Bill Gates warn that this alarming situation puts the United States at a serious disadvantage in the high-tech global marketplace of the twenty-first century, and President Obama places improvement in these areas at the center of his educational reform. What can be done to reverse this poor performance and to unleash America’s wasted talent? David E. Drew has good news—and the tools America needs to keep competitive. Drawing on both academic literature and his own rich experience, Drew identifies proven strategies for reforming America’s schools, colleges, and universities, and his comprehensive review of STEM education in the United States offers a positive blueprint for the future. These research-based strategies include creative and successful methods for building strong programs in science and mathematics education and show how the achievement gap between majority and minority students can be closed. A crucial measure, he argues, is recruiting, educating, supporting, and respecting America’s teachers. Accessible, engaging, and hard hitting, STEM the Tide is a clarion call to policymakers, administrators, educators, and everyone else concerned about students’ participation in the STEM fields and America’s competitive global position.

Educating Teachers of Science, Mathematics, and Technology

Educating Teachers of Science, Mathematics, and Technology
Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 232
Release: 2000-12-18
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0309171989

Each new headline about American students' poor performance in math and science leads to new calls for reform in teaching. Education Teachers of Science, Mathematics, and Technology puts the whole picture together by synthesizing what we know about the quality of math and science teaching, drawing conclusions about why teacher preparation needs reform, and then outlining recommendations for accomplishing the most important goals before us. As a framework for addressing the task, the book advocates partnerships among school districts, colleges, and universities, with contributions from scientists, mathematicians, teacher educators, and teachers. It then looks carefully at the status of the education reform movement and explores the motives for raising the bar for how well teachers teach and how well students learn. Also examined are important issues in teacher professionalism: what teachers should be taught about their subjects, the utility of in-service education, the challenge of program funding, and the merits of credentialing. Professional Development Schools are reviewed and vignettes presented that describe exemplary teacher development practices.

Science and Math Education Reform

Science and Math Education Reform
Author: United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Governmental Affairs
Publisher:
Total Pages: 232
Release: 1993
Genre: Education
ISBN:

This document presents a field hearing of the Governmental Affairs Committee to examine the current reform efforts in science and mathematics education at the federal and state levels, focusing specifically on the experiences of Ohio. Nine witnesses representing various educational levels presented testimony concerning mathematics and science education initiatives in Ohio. Initiatives and issues discussed included: (1) the Ohio Proficiency Test; (2) Project Discovery, a project focusing on preparing middle school students to think critically and solve problems; (3) the National Center for Science Teaching and Learning; (4) curriculum reform; (5) societal factors influencing reform; (6) collaboration among the higher education, public education, and business sectors; (7) the B-WISER Institute, a summer camp and follow-up program that empowers young women to achieve in science; and (8) the under-representation of minorities and women in mathematics and science. Appendices contain copies of prepared statements by the witnesses and other participants. (MDH)

Responsive Teaching in Science and Mathematics

Responsive Teaching in Science and Mathematics
Author: Amy D. Robertson
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 285
Release: 2015-10-05
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1317423747

Answering calls in recent reform documents to shape instruction in response to students’ ideas while integrating key concepts and scientific and/or mathematical practices, this text presents the concept of responsive teaching, synthesizes existing research, and examines implications for both research and teaching. Case studies across the curriculum from elementary school through adult education illustrate the variety of forms this approach to instruction and learning can take, what is common among them, and how teachers and students experience it. The cases include intellectual products of students’ work in responsive classrooms and address assessment methods and issues. Many of the cases are supplemented with online resources (http://www.studentsthinking.org/rtsm) including classroom video and extensive transcripts, providing readers with additional opportunities to immerse themselves in responsive classrooms and to see for themselves what these environments look and feel like.

California Dreaming

California Dreaming
Author: Suzanne M. Wilson
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 319
Release: 2008-10-01
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0300127537

This compelling book tells the history of the past two decades of efforts to reform mathematics education in California. That history is a contentious one, full of such fervor and heat that participants and observers often refer to the “math wars.” Suzanne M. Wilson considers the many perspectives of those involved in math reform, weaving a tapestry of facts, philosophies, conversations, events, and personalities into a vivid narrative. While her focus is on California, the implications of her book extend to struggles over education policy and practice throughout the United States. Wilson’s three-dimensional account of math education reform efforts reveals how the debates tend to be deeply ideological and how people come to feel misunderstood and misrepresented. She examines the myths used to explain the failure of reforms, the actual reasons for failure, and the importance of taking multiple perspectives into account when planning and implementing reform.

Professional Standards for Teaching Mathematics

Professional Standards for Teaching Mathematics
Author: National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. Commission on Teaching Standards for School Mathematics
Publisher: National Council of Teachers of Mathematics
Total Pages: 214
Release: 1991
Genre: Education
ISBN: 9780873533072

Authorized Teacher resource for Mathematics, K-12 in Alberta. 1991-2001.

Designing Mathematics or Science Curriculum Programs

Designing Mathematics or Science Curriculum Programs
Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 70
Release: 1999-11-15
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0309185629

With the publication of the National Science Education Standards and the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics' Curriculum and Evaluation Standards for School Mathematics, a clear set of goals and guidelines for achieving literacy in mathematics and science was established. Designing Mathematics or Science Curriculum Programs has been developed to help state- and district-level education leaders create coherent, multi-year curriculum programs that provide students with opportunities to learn both mathematics and science in a connected and cumulative way throughout their schooling. Researchers have confirmed that as U.S. students move through the grade levels, they slip further and further behind students of other nations in mathematics and science achievement. Experts now believe that U.S. student performance is hindered by the lack of coherence in the mathematics and science curricula in many American schools. By structuring curriculum programs that capitalize on what students have already learned, the new concepts and processes that they can learn will be richer, more complex, and at a higher level. Designing Mathematics or Science Curriculum Programs outlines: Components of effective mathematics and science programs. Criteria by which these components can be judged. A process for developing curriculum that is structured, focused, and coherent. Perhaps most important, this book emphasizes the need for designing curricula across the entire 13-year span that our children spend in elementary and secondary school as a way to improve the quality of education. Ultimately, it will help state and district educators use national and state standards to design or re-build mathematics and science curriculum programs that develop new ideas and skills based on earlier onesâ€"from lesson to lesson, unit to unit, year to year. Anyone responsible for designing or influencing mathematics or science curriculum programs will find this guide valuable.

Designing Professional Development for Teachers of Science and Mathematics

Designing Professional Development for Teachers of Science and Mathematics
Author: Susan Loucks-Horsley
Publisher: Corwin Press
Total Pages: 425
Release: 2010
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1412974143

The revised classic for designing mathematics and science professional development presents an updated planning framework and many professional development strategies and emphasizes continuous program monitoring and building professional cultures.

Mathematics and Science Education Around the World

Mathematics and Science Education Around the World
Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 31
Release: 1996-10-18
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0309184851

Amid current efforts to improve mathematics and science education in the United States, people often ask how these subjects are organized and taught in other countries. They hear repeatedly that other countries produce higher student achievement. Teachers and parents wonder about the answers to questions like these: Why do the children in Asian cultures seem to be so good at science and mathematics? How are biology and physics taught in the French curriculum? What are textbooks like elsewhere, and how much latitude do teachers have in the way they follow the texts? Do all students receive the same education, or are they grouped by ability or perceived educational promise? If students are grouped, how early is this done? What are tests like, and what are the consequences for students? Are other countries engaged in Standards-like reforms? Does anything like "standards" play a role in other countries? Questions such as these reflect more than a casual interest in other countries' educational practices. They grow out of an interest in identifying ways to improve mathematics and science education in the United States. The focus of this short report is on what the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), a major international investigation of curriculum, instruction, and learning in mathematics and science, will be able to contribute to understandings of mathematics and science education around the world as well as to current efforts to improve student learning, particularly in the United States.