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National Council of Teachers of Mathematics
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
National Council of Teachers of Mathematics
Formation 1920
Headquarters Reston, VA
Membership over 80,000
President Linda M. Gojak
Website http://www.nctm.org
The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) was founded in 1920. It has grown to be the
world's largest organization concerned withmathematics education, having more than 80,000 members across
the USA and Canada, and internationally.
The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics presents itself as "the public voice of mathematics education,
supporting teachers to ensure equitable mathematics learning of the highest quality for all students through
vision, leadership, professional development, and research."[1]
NCTM holds annual national and regional conferences for American teachers and publishes four print journals.
Its published standards have been highly influential in the direction of mathematics education in the United
States and Canada.
Journals[edit]
NCTM publishes six journals. There are journals for elementary school, middle school, and high
school teachers of mathematics; a resource journal of math explorations for students in grades
5–10; a journal for educators of math teachers; and a research journal for mathematics
education. All are available in print and online versions except the Mathematics Teacher
Educator Journal, which is online only and published jointly with the Association of Mathematics
Teacher Educators.
Teaching Children Mathematics, an official journal of the National Council of Teachers of
Mathematics (NCTM), supports improvement of pre-K–6 mathematics education by serving as a
resource for teachers so as to provide more and better mathematics for all students. It is a

forum for the exchange of mathematics idea, activities, and pedagogical strategies, and or
sharing and interpreting research.
Mathematics Teaching in the Middle School, an official journal of the National Council of
Teachers of Mathematics, supports the improvement of 5–9 mathematics education by serving
as a resource for practicing and prospective teachers, as well as supervisors and teacher
educators. It is a forum for the exchange of mathematics idea, activities, and pedagogical
strategies, and or sharing and interpreting research.
Mathematics Teacher, an official NCTM journal, is devoted to improving mathematics instruction
for grades 8–14 and supporting teacher education programs. It provides a forum for sharing
activities and pedagogical strategies, deepening understanding of mathematical ideas, and
linking mathematical education research to practice.
NCTM does not conduct research in mathematics education, but it does publish the Journal for
Research in Mathematics Education (JRME), the most influential periodical in mathematics
education research worldwide and the fourth most-cited educational research journal of any
kind.[2]
Summaries of the most important findings in mathematics educational research in regard
to current practices can be found on their website. JRME is devoted to the interests of teachers
of mathematics and mathematics education at all levels—preschool through adult. JRME is a
forum for disciplined inquiry into the teaching and learning of mathematics. The editors
encourage the submission of a variety of manuscripts: reports of research, including
experiments, case studies, surveys, philosophical studies, and historical studies; articles about
research, including literature reviews and theoretical analyses; brief reports of research;
critiques of articles and books; and brief commentaries on issues pertaining to research.
NCTM Standards[edit]
NCTM has published a series of math Standards outlining a vision for school mathematics in the
USA and Canada. In 1989, NCTM developed the Curriculum and Evaluation Standards for
School Mathematics, followed by the Professional Standards for Teaching Mathematics (1991)
and the Assessment Standards for School Mathematics (1995). Education officials lauded these
math standards, and the National Science Foundation funded several projects to develop
curricula consistent with recommendations of the standards. The Department of Education cited
several of these programs as "exemplary". However, implementation of the reform has run into
strong criticism and opposition, including parental revolts and the creation of antireform
organizations such asMathematically Correct and HOLD. These organizations object especially
to reform curricula that greatly decrease attention to the practice and memorization of basic
skills and facts. Critics of the reform include a contingent of vocal mathematicians, and some
other mathematicians have expressed at least some serious criticism of the reformers in the
past.

In 2000, NCTM released the updated Principles and Standards for School
Mathematics. Principles and Standards is widely considered to be a more balanced and less
controversial vision of reform than its predecessor.
Post–World War II Plan[edit]
In 1944, NCTM created a postwar plan to help World War II have a lasting effect on math
education. Grades 1-6 were considered crucial years to build the foundations of math concepts
with the main focus on algebra. In the war years, algebra had one understood purpose: to help
the military and industries with the war effort. Math educators hoped to help their students see
the need for algebra in the life of an everyday citizen[3]
The report outlined three strategies that
helped math educators emphasize the everyday usage of algebra. First, teachers focused on
the meanings behind concepts. Before, teachers were expected to use either the Drill or the
Meaning Theory. Now, teachers gave students purpose behind every concept while providing
an ample amount of problems. Second, teachers abandoned the informal technique of teaching.
This technique was popular during the 1930s and continued during the war, and in essence
depended on what the students wanted to learn, based on their interests and needs. Instead,
math teachers approached the material in an organized manner. The thinking was that Math
itself had a very distinct organization that could not be compromised simply because the student
was uninterested in the matter. Third, teachers learned to adapt to the students by offering the
proper practice students needed in order to be successful.[3]
After the sixth year, seventh and
eighth grades were considered key in ensuring students learned concepts, and were
increasingly standardized for all pupils. During these years, teachers verified all key concepts
learned in the previous years were mastered, while preparing students for the sequential math
courses offered in high school. The army credited poor performance of males during the war to
the men forgetting math concepts; it was recommended that reinforcing past concepts learned
would solve this problem. The report lists the organization of the topics that should be taught in
these years. ―(1) number and computation; (2) the geometry of everyday life; (3) graphic
representation; (4) an introduction to the essentials of elementary algebra (formula and
equation).‖[3]
At the same time, these years were meant to help students gain critical thinking
skills applicable to every aspect of life. In middle school, students should gain maturity in math,
and confidence in past material.[3]
In ninth grade, NCTM expressed the need for a two track
curriculum for students in large schools. Those who have a greater desire to study math would
go on one track, studying algebra. Those who did not have a large interest in math would go
another route, studying general mathematics, which eliminated the problem of students being
held back.[3]
Finally, grades 10-12 built math maturity. In the tenth year, courses focused on
geometry through algebraic uses. The eleventh year focused on a continuation of more
advanced algebra topics. These topics were more advanced than those discussed in the ninth
grade. However, if the student took an advanced algebra class during the ninth year, then he
took two of the semester classes offered the twelfth year.

1989 Curriculum and Evaluation Standards for School
Mathematics[edit]
The controversial 1989 NCTM Standards called for more emphasis on conceptual
understanding and problem solving informed by a constructivist understanding of how children
learn. The increased emphasis on concepts required decreased emphasis on direct instruction
of facts and algorithms. This decrease of traditional rote learning was sometimes understood by
both critics and proponents of the standards to mean elimination of basic skills and precise
answers, but NCTM has refuted this interpretation.[4]
In reform mathematics, students are exposed to algebraic concepts such as patterns and the
commutative property as early as first grade. Standard arithmetic methods are not taught until
children have had an opportunity to explore and understand how mathematical principles work,
usually by first inventing their own methods for solving problems and sometimes ending with
children's guided discovery of traditional methods. The Standards called for a de-emphasis of
complex calculation drills.
The standards set forth a democratic vision that for the first time set out to promote equity and
mathematical power as a goal for all students, including women and underrepresented
minorities. The use of calculators and manipulatives was encouraged and rote memorization
were de-emphasized. The 1989 standards encouraged writing in order to learn expression of
mathematical ideas. All students were expected to master enough mathematics to succeed in
college, and rather than defining success by rank order, uniform, high standards were set for all
students. Explicit goals of standards based education reform were to require all students to pass
high standards of performance, to improve international competitiveness, eliminate
the achievement gap and produce a productive labor force. Such beliefs were considered
congruent with the democratic vision of outcome-based education and standards based
education reform that all students will meet standards. The U.S. Department of Education
named several standards-based curricula as "exemplary", though a group of academics
responded in protest with an ad taken out in the Washington Post, noting selection was made
largely on which curricula implemented the standards most extensively rather than on
demonstrated improvements in test scores.[citation needed]
The standards soon became the basis for many new federally funded curricula such as
the Core-Plus Mathematics Project and became the foundation of many local and
state curriculum frameworks. Although the standards were the consensus of those teaching
mathematics in the context of real life, they also became a lightning rod of criticism as "math
wars" erupted in some communities that were opposed to some of the more radical changes to
mathematics instruction such as Mathland's Fantasy Lunch and what some dubbed "rainforest
algebra". Some students complained that their new math courses placed them into remedial
math in college, though later research found students from traditional curricula were going into
remedial math in even greater numbers. (See Andover debate.)

In the United States, curricula are set at the state or local level. The California State Board of
Education [1] was one of the first to embrace the 1989 standards, and also among the first to
move back towards traditional standards.[5]
2000 Principles and Standards for School Mathematics[edit]
Main article: Principles and Standards for School Mathematics
The controversy surrounding the 1989 standards paved the way for revised standards which
sought more clarity and balance. In 2000, NCTM used a consensus process involving
mathematicians, teachers, and educational researchers to revise its standards with the release
of the Principles and Standards for School Mathematics, which replaced all preceding
publications. The new standards were organized around six principles (Equity, Curriculum,
Teaching, Learning, Assessment, and Technology) and ten strands, which included five content
areas (Number and Operations, Algebra, Geometry, Measurement, and Data Analysis and
Probability) and five processes (Problem Solving, Reasoning and Proof, Communication,
Connections, and Representation).Principles and Standards was not perceived to be as radical
as the 1989 standards and did not engender significant criticism. The new standards have been
widely used to inform textbook creation, state and local curricula, and current trends in teaching.
2006 Curriculum Focal Points[edit]
In September 2006, NCTM released Curriculum Focal Points for Prekindergarten through Grade
8 Mathematics: A Quest for Coherence. In the Focal Points, NCTM identifies what it believes to
be the most important mathematical topics for each grade level, including the related ideas,
concepts, skills, and procedures that form the foundation for understanding and lasting learning.
In the Focal Points, NCTM made it clear that the standard algorithms were to be included in
arithmetic instruction.
Mathematics curricula in the United States are often described as ―a mile wide and an inch
deep‖ when compared with curricula from other countries. State content expectations per grade
level range anywhere between 26 and 89 topics. At just three per grade (plus a few additional
"connection" topics), the focal points offer more than headings for long lists, providing instead
descriptions of the most significant mathematical concepts and skills at each grade level and
identifying important connections to other topics. NCTM believes that organizing a curriculum
around these described focal points, with a clear emphasis on the processes that Principles and
Standards addresses in the Process Standards—communication, reasoning, representation,
connections, and, particularly, problem solving—can provide students with a connected,
coherent, ever expanding body of mathematical knowledge and ways of thinking.
The Focal Points were one of the documents used in creating the 2010 Common Core State
Standards, which have been adopted by most states as the basis for new math curricula

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