In the mid- 1970s the curriculum development boom in mathematics was to end almost as rapidly as it had begun. In this book the authors, who come from countries with differing educational traditions and patterns, consider these developments in their historical, social and educational context. They give not only a descriptive account of developmental work in a variety of countries, its aims and the patterns of management utilised, but also attempt to identify trends and characteristics and thus provide a theoretical base for criticism and analysis. The reader will find numerous case studies, including extracts from such renowned authors as Bruner, Dieudonne and Piaget.

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.

Curriculum can be defined in a variety of ways. It might be viewed as a body of knowledge, a product, or a process. Curricula can differ as they are conceptualized from various theoretical perspectives to address the needs of teachers, students, and the context of schooling. One reason to study curriculum is “to reveal the expectations, processes and outcomes of students’ school learning experiences that are situated in different cultural and system contexts. … further studies of curriculum practices and changes are much needed to help ensure the success of educational reforms in the different cultural and system contexts” (Kulm & Li, 2009, p. 709). This volume highlights international perspectives on curriculum and aims to broaden the wider mathematics education community’s understandings of mathematics curriculum through viewing a variety of ways that curricula are developed, understood, and implemented in different jurisdictions/countries. Within this volume, we define curriculum broadly as the set of mathematics standards or outcomes, the messages inherent in mathematics curriculum documents and resources, how these standards are understood by a variety of stakeholders, and how they are enacted in classrooms. The focus is on the written, implied, and enacted curriculum in various educational settings throughout the world.

Results from national and international assessments indicate that school children in the United States are not learning mathematics well enough. Many students cannot correctly apply computational algorithms to solve problems. Their understanding and use of decimals and fractions are especially weak. Indeed, helping all children succeed in mathematics is an imperative national goal. However, for our youth to succeed, we need to change how we're teaching this discipline. Helping Children Learn Mathematics provides comprehensive and reliable information that will guide efforts to improve school mathematics from pre-kindergarten through eighth grade. The authors explain the five strands of mathematical proficiency and discuss the major changes that need to be made in mathematics instruction, instructional materials, assessments, teacher education, and the broader educational system and answers some of the frequently asked questions when it comes to mathematics instruction. The book concludes by providing recommended actions for parents and caregivers, teachers, administrators, and policy makers, stressing the importance that everyone work together to ensure a mathematically literate society.

The book presents comparative analyses of five elementary mathematics curriculum programs used in the U.S. from three different perspectives: the mathematical emphasis, the pedagogical approaches, and how authors communicate with teachers. These perspectives comprise a framework for examining what curriculum materials are comprised of, what is involved in reading and interpreting them, and how curriculum authors can and do support teachers in this process. Although the focus of the analysis is 5 programs used at a particular point in time, this framework extends beyond these specific programs and illuminates the complexity of curriculum materials and their role in teaching in general. Our analysis of the mathematical emphasis considers how the mathematics content is presented in each program, in terms of sequencing, the nature of mathematical tasks (cognitive demand and ongoing practice), and the way representations are used. Our analysis of the pedagogical approach examines explicit and implicit messages about how students should interact with mathematics, one another, the teacher, and the textbook around these mathematical ideas, as well as the role of the teacher. In order to examine how curriculum authors support teachers, we analyze how they communicate with teachers and what they communicate about, including the underlying mathematics, noticing student thinking, and rationale for design elements. The volume includes a chapter on curriculum design decisions based on interviews with curriculum authors.

In the last thirty years or so, the need to address the challenges of teaching and learning mathematics at university level has become increasingly appreciated by university mathematics teachers, and beyond, by educational institutions around the world. Indeed, mathematics is both a condition and an obstacle to success for students in many educational programmes vital to the 21st century knowledge society, for example in pure and applied mathematics, engineering, natural sciences, technology, economics, finance, management and so on. This breadth of impact of mathematics implies the urgency of developing research in university mathematics education, and of sharing results of this research widely. This book provides a bespoke opportunity for an international audience of researchers in didactics of mathematics, mathematicians and any teacher or researcher with an interest in this area to be informed about state-of-the-art developments and to heed future research agendas. This book emerged from the activities of the research project INDRUM (acronym for International Network for Didactic Research in University Mathematics), which aims to contribute to the development of research in didactics of mathematics at all levels of tertiary education, with a particular concern for the development of early-career researchers in the field and for dialogue with university mathematicians. The aim of the book is to provide a deep synthesis of the research field as it appears through two INDRUM conferences organised in 2016 and 2018. It is an original contribution which highlights key research perspectives, addresses seminal theoretical and methodological issues and reports substantial results concerning the teaching and learning of mathematics at university level, including the teaching and learning of specific topics in advanced mathematics across a wide range of university programmes.

This book compiles and synthesizes existing research on teachers’ use of mathematics curriculum materials and the impact of curriculum materials on teaching and teachers, with a particular emphasis on – but not restricted to – those materials developed in the 1990s in response to the NCTM’s Principles and Standards for School Mathematics. Despite the substantial amount of curriculum development activity over the last 15 years and growing scholarly interest in their use, the book represents the first compilation of research on teachers and mathematics curriculum materials and the first volume with this focus in any content area in several decades.