Chapter 1 Mathematics curriculum reform in the united states: A historical perspective

Problematizing teaching and learning mathematics as “given” in STEM education

“…With the gradual development of school mathematics since 1900s (Stanic and Kilpatrick 1992), the conception of the nature of mathematics has increasingly received attention from mathematics educators. Which notion of mathematics mathematics education adopts and uses has a direct and strong impact on the way of school mathematics being presented and approached in education.…”

“…Which notion of mathematics mathematics education adopts and uses has a direct and strong impact on the way of school mathematics being presented and approached in education. Although the history of school mathematics is relatively short in comparison with mathematics itself, we can find ample examples about the influence of different views of mathematics on curriculum and classroom instruction in the USA and other education systems (e.g., Dossey et al 2016;Li and Lappan 2014;Li, Silver, and Li 2014;Stanic and Kilpatrick 1992). For instance, the "New Math" movement of 1950s and 1960s used the formalism school of thought as the core of reform efforts.…”

“…According to Stanic and Kilpatrick (1992), the history of school mathematics curricula presents two important and real changes over the years: one is at the turn of the twentieth century when school mathematics was reformed as a unified and applied curriculum to accommodate dramatically increased student populations from diverse backgrounds, and the other is the "New Math" movement of the 1950s and 1960s, intended to integrate modern mathematics into school curriculum. The perceived failure of the "New Math" movement led to the "Back to Basics" movement in the 1970s, followed by "Problem Solving" in the 1980s, and then the Curriculum Standards movement in the 1990s and after.…”

Prospective Primary School Teachers Views on the Nature of Mathematics

“…However, most movements have been deemed to be unsuccessful to change classroom mathematics teaching and learning. Studies of school practice during the new math movement indicated that the reforms were never authentically implemented in most classrooms (Stanic & Kilpatrick, 1992) because teachers were not well prepared to teach the content that the new math movement required.…”

The development of reasoning skills during compulsory 16 to 18 mathematics education

“…For example, Stanic (1986) and Stanic and Kilpatrick (1992) reported that changes to the US school-level mathematics curriculum in the twentieth century were related to views about the TFD in the mathematics education community. It is therefore important that views on the TFD are based on research evidence, which historically has been rather sparse.…”