Math Ed Forum Meeting Minutes
Saturday, March 13th, 1999
PRESENT:
J. Paul Balog, Ed Barbeau, Len Catleugh, Don Dawson, Eugene Silaev,
John Kezys, William Langford, Trevor Luke, Neal Madras, Reid McAlpine,
Eric Muller, Elizabeth Pattison, Cheryl Turner, Margaret Warren, Walter
Whitely, Dave Zimmer
1. The minutes of the November 28, 1998 meeting were approved unanimously.
2. ANNOUNCEMENTS
a) The Spring Competition for Mathematics Educational Projects is open.
Deadline - End of March
The Fields Institute can provide up to $10,000
b) Curriculum Policy Document completed and submitted on time. Congratulations
to Judy Crompton and team.
3. Presentation - Curriculum Implementation - Marg Warren
a) Course Profiles
- 2 Teams - Public (Peel-led) and Catholic (Ottawa-led)
- Teachers will have a choice
- Both will be reviewed by the Ontario Curriculum Clearinghouse
- Project overseen by the Council of Directors of Education
- Peel-Led team is working on Math and Science
- First 40% has been submitted to OCC for review by peer team
- Have tackled assessment, integration of technology and weaving together
of strands, complex tasks, communication, inquiry
- also by Catholic
- Provincial orientation sessions to follow
b) Curriculum
- there will be a provincial tender for dynamic geometry software
- strong support for text resources and technology in budget
- anticipate M.E.T. graphing calculator purchase
- there will be an expectation for students to buy their own graphing
calculators for use throughout high school.
Implementation Initiatives
- strong instructional language imbedded in curriculum expectations
- investigate/ explore
- reason
- communicate
- use of technology
OMCA Inservice Initiative
- plan to touch as many teachers across the province with inservice
as possible
- continuous involvement of key instructional leaders have led to a
coherent vision that has led to this curriculum
- chronology of key events that led to the curriculum we now have
- well-formed visions
- clearly articulated goals
- feedback opportunities and influence
- production of OSS Curriculum Policy Documents
- Course Profiles (Grade 9 complete for Sept. '99, Grade 10 to be written
in Summer '99)
- want majority of students to move through the U/C stream -- that will
be a measure of the success of the new curriculum
- M.E.T. is considering the OMCA plan as one alternative for inservice
- details have not yet been confirmed.
- Marg distributed a copy of the proposal, and walked the group through
the project
- DISCUSSION- How to influence M.E.T. to support this initiative to
inservice teachers in implementing the math curriculum
4. Presentation - Proposal for a new program - Trevor Luke (U.W.O.)
- Integrate math B.Sc. program with education in a concurrent way
- How B.Sc. in applied math and B.Ed. - 5year program
- Departments - Applied Math, Math, Statistics and Actuarial Science,
Education
- Presentation of sample course structure for the 5 year program
5. Presentation - Curriculum Validation for Grades 11-12 - Neil Madras
- described the process
- process coordinated by the council of Ontario Universities
- want feedback by April 19
- committees from University, College and M.E.T. will meet in May to
make recommendations, endorsements, etc.
- how its handled at each institution is unknown
- College Validation Process (John Kezys)
- ACAATO has appointed a provincial coordinator
- each college has a coordinator
- process is not well-defined
6. Presentation - Math Teacher Shortage - Introduction by Bill Langford
- Bill provided several copies of articles that highlight the issues
Don Dawson
- request from M.E.T. to help with looming shortage
- Math Education Forum and the Fields Institute have real credibility
with M.E.T. as a result of Curriculum Policy Document and previous input
- suggestion from the Minister of Education that the Fields Institute
and M.E.T. could formulate a strategy to address math teacher shortage
- M.E.T. could contribute up to $100,000/yr. for the next few years to
help formulate strategy to deal with this issue
- prolonged brainstorming discussion regarding the issues
Bill Langford and Don Dawson
- suggest establishing a working group to examine long term issues
- standards for teacher preparation
- retraining students in math
- public perception of mathematics
- solicited volunteers/nominations for this group
Volunteers - Ed Barbeau, Eric Muller Walter Whitely, John Ip, John Kezys
Nominated - Geoff Roulet, Elizabeth Pattison, Pat Rogers
Ex-officio - Bill Langford, Don Dawson
Work Group should be kept to 10 or less.
Working Group to meet March 27, 1999, at The Fields Institute from
10:00a.m. - 1:00p.m. [later changed to April 2, 10:00a.m. - 1:00p.m.]
Priorities - Now - How do we immediately react to M.E.T.?
- What proposals should be generated that M.E.T. would accept and favourably
react to?
7. Next Mathematics Education Forum - April 24, 1999
