10th International Congress on Mathematics Education

John Mahoney, Luis Hernandez and Benjamin Sinwell

ICME-10 Facts • www.ICME-10.dk

• Copenhagen, Denmark

• July 4-11, 2004

• 5½ Days of Meetings and One Excursion Day

More Facts

• Venue: DTU – Technical University of Denmark

• Organized in cooperation with the 5 Nordic countries: Iceland, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Finland

500 Meters

ICME-10 Participants

• 2500+ participants from over 100 countries

• Mathematicians, Mathematics Educators, and Teachers

NCTM Travel Grants

• 600 Americans applied for funding through an NSF grant administered through NCTM and 45 were selected.

• We formed into six groups: John was in the“Information and Communication Technology” group and Ben was in the “Professional Development” group.

Types of Sessions: Part I

• 9 Plenary (Whole Group) Meetings

• 90 Lectures – spread over five sessions

• 57 Workshops and Sharing Experiences Groups

• National Presentations – Russia, Mexico, Nordic Countries, Romania, and Korea

Types of Sessions: Part II

• 29 Topic Study Groups

• 24 Discussion Groups

• 1 Thematic Afternoon

• Poster Presentation

Topic Study Groups – met four times during the week

John participated in “The role and use of technology in the teaching and learning of mathematics.” Ben participated in “Relations between

mathematics and other subjects of art and science”

Luis participated in “New developments and trends in mathematics education at pre-school and primary levels.

Discussion Groups – met three times during the week

John participated in “Current problems and challenges in upper secondary mathematics education.”

Ben participated in “Mathematics Education for whom and why? The balance between ‘mathematics education for all’ and ‘for high level mathematical ability’

Luis participated in “Experiences from the IAS/PCMI International Seminars

Thematic Afternoon – met once for

two 2-hour sessions

John participated in “Technology in Mathematics Education”

Ben participated in “Mathematics and mathematics education.”

Posters

Ben did one on “Chebyshev Polynomials: Patterns and Derivations”

John did one entitled “Learning

from Benjamin Banneker’s Mathematics”

Highlights

• Opportunity to hear and interact with many of the world’s leading mathematicians, mathematics educators, and teachers – informally and formally

• Plenary: discussion of leading “veteran” math educators about the current and future state of math education.

• Hyman Bass’s plenary session: Essentially why should mathematicians be interested in mathematics education

Highlights…

• Romulo Lins – Brazil – talk on the importance of understanding who your students are and where they are coming from. Teachers need courses that emulate classroom environment and the learning that goes on.

• Workshop on an Australian Journal devoted to spreadsheet based applications of math.

• Discussion group – getting view points from different countries and cultures about how and to whom mathematics is taught.

Even More Highlights

• German professor’s lecture on using Fathom to teach statistics. Outstanding and creative mathematical models.

• Nick Jackiw’s presentation on using sketchpad to model complex valued functions using color and shades of color for the 3rd and 4th dimensions.

• Math circus – right turn only labyrinth • Hong Kong professor’s lecture on the results of an

ICME survey of Information and communication technology in math ed. (Difference between potential and actuality)

Acknowledgements

• We are extraordinarily appreciative of the opportunity we were given.

• Thanks to: National Science Foundation National Council of Teacher of

Mathematics and especially Gail Burrill

www.MathEx.org