History of Mathematics Education in North America
See also history of education in the United States
Mayan invented the use of zero
1556 – Spanish
Before 1700 – 11
11 Math books published
1703
1st book math content in English “Young Secretarial’s Assistant”
1729
1st arithmetic text book Greenway Method, School Master’s Assistant, Pike’s arithmetic
1821- 1894
Rise of the University - Rousou Froebel
1839
1st Public normal school in MA
1898
First Teacher's College - Columbia
1896
University of Nebraska - Lincoln
1895 –
Graduate College oldest West of the Mississippi
1821 –
Colburn’s Arithmetic
1920-1930
Learning Theory as theTeaching of “Mental Discipline.” Mind made up of faculties and the more it was used the stronger they became (memory muscles) this was known as Faculty Psychology
Thorndike at Columbia University destroy this theory with his experiments.
Brownel advocated practical knowledge
1920
Reform, decreasing enrollments, the depression, pragmatism, and the lack of interest in memorization lead to the idea that meaning needs to be taught.
1950+
Meaning VS. drill
WW II draftees were found to be inadequate in their education - Steelman report – need technicians, engineers, scientists
Study at Columbia
found that 80% of the students who could do:
(x+y)2 = x2 + 2xy + y2 ;
couldn't do (u + t)2 = t 2 + 2ut + t 2 or
(40+2)2 = 40 2 + 2*40*2 + 2 2
1951
University of Illinois Commission on School Mathematics lead by Max Beberman created an excellent high school curriculum for college bound students.
Then the Illinois Arithmetic Project headed by David Page created an elementary curriculum
1952
both were comleted and had the discovery method built in.
1957
Sputnik – World War II, felt education needed help, were we a backward country? When the US rocket was launched to try to catch the Russians it blew up. Blame was put squarely on the schools.
NeededTechnology - created the National Science Foundation for the purposeto enhance science.
It was given $ to create workshops to help teachers iin high schools, then junior high schools and elementary.
1977
SMSG School Mathematics Study Group headed by Ed Begle from Stanford University decided that to improve student learning of mathematics the curriculum could be improved by improving the texts.
Thought they could write an imporced text in a summer , try it the following school year and revise it the next summer.
1965
Every major Publishing co. was publishing copies of math books.
1965
Solid Geometry dropped was dropped down to 10th grade & not hit good enough.
1962 - 1963
Modern Math
Madison Project – Robert Davis
Ball State Project -
GCMP Greater Cleveland Math Project
Bring school curriculum in line with mathematics because math had changed
1970
Publishing Companies were publishing their 3rd generation of math books
There was interest in individual students, accountability, and a counter revolution that lead to a Back to the basics Movement
1975
NACOME - Report
1980
Prism Project – Survey with Recommendations as a result of the project
Problem Solving, Piaget, Ganya, Bruner, Modern Math – Abstract
There were now 57-62 different text books and they were rapidly changeing
More talk about our Technological edge and money was being taken out of education creating a time bomb while other countries were dumping money into eduation.
The number of Secondary schools all over the country were decreasing their requirements for math
1985
A Nation at Risk
1989
National Council of Teachers of Mathematics published their first Standards Book.