NCTM News Bulletin, July-August Edition

The newest volume of the News Bulletin from the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics has begun, and it has a snazzy new look that’s shaken off some of the stodginess of the old newsletter. Good work by their graphics department. Some highlights:

*My man-crush on Skip Fennell continues on unabated as he turns in another excellent column, this time on the inherent challenges of the No Child Left Behind act.

*You can apply to get a grant to cover your travel costs to the International Congress on Mathematical Education conference in Monterrey, Mexico next July. That’d be a heck of a way to spend part of your summer vacation.

*Their journal of secondary math, The Mathematics Teacher, is looking for thoughts from teachers on how they reach their ESL/ELL students in the math classroom. Submission details here; general NCTM publishing guidelines can be found here. If you get published because of something you read off of I Thought a Think, please give me second author credit.

(just kidding)

*My recent post on the research/practice gap (which was profoundly expanded upon by The Science Goddess—thanks, Goddess!) seems to have been on the mind of the NCTM as well; their series of Research Briefs is designed to help bridge the divide by, “strengthening connections between practice and research.” It’s a good start to what could be a very worthwhile project.

*This issue marks the beginning of a series on intervention in mathematics; I’m quite curious to see where it goes. The material on intervention for reading difficulties is voluminous, but not so much for the mathematics. This could be a good place to keep an eye on if you’re a math specialist or math coach here in Washington, because golly knows we could use the help.

Hope you're enjoying your summer!