Chapter 15: Content and Pedagogical Knowledge in Colorado Teachers’ Mathematics Exams at the Turn of the 20th Century

During the late 1800s and early 1900s, several published reports recommended changes in teaching mathematics. For this chapter, items from the Colorado county arithmetic tests (1878–1912) form the basis of investigating teacher’s content knowledge and the degree to which education was adhering to these recommendations. The purpose of this chapter is to investigate whether or not recommendations proposed by the Report of the Committee of Ten (NEA, 1893) and the Report of the Committee of the Chicago Section (1899) made an impact on teacher certification exams in the state of Colorado.