Chapter 5: Doing Something Different: Envisioning and Enacting Mathematics Curriculum Alternatives

Since the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) was established in 1920, calls for reform and change in mathematics education have been consistent. These repeated calls for reform in mathematics education over the past century have focused on the mathematics that should be taught and learned, scope and sequences in curriculum, and a strong push for standards. Wood (2001) states that the reform agenda in mathematics education, supported by both the 1989 Curriculum and Evaluation Standards for School Mathematics and the more recent NCTM principals and standards document published in 2000, “calls for significant and substantial changes in our ways of educating students in mathematics” (p. 110). Wood continues by suggesting that “at the heart of the reform is a transformation in the ways students learn and teachers teach mathematics. These changes aim for ways of learning and teaching that result in students knowing a ‘different’ kind of school mathematics” (p. 110).