C & I 301: Introduction to Teaching Secondary Mathematics in a Diverse Society

Excellence in mathematics education requires equity—high expectations and strong support for ALL students

Overview: C&I 301 M is the first of four courses in a professional sequence for pre-service secondary mathematics teachers.

Through this course, I hope you will do the following:

1. Become familiar with the state and national standards for mathematics education.
2. Learn some of the tools and techniques for reaching a broad variety of students.
3. Become familiar with the wide range of issues in teaching mathematics to diverse populations, including learning styles, classroom management, and the struggles and negative attitudes that many high school students bring to the mathematics classroom.
4. Become familiar with the uses of some digital technologies for the mathematics classroom.

Since the mid-1980's, many changes have occurred in the demographic make-up of American classrooms, in the ways we view the nature of mathematics and, consequently, how we learn and teach mathematics. Moreover, great technological advances have facilitated many new means of learning and teaching mathematics. National reform movements (spurred by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics and other organizations) that address content, technology, and pedagogy are changing dramatically the face of the 21st century mathematics classroom and the possibilities for reaching a broader student population.

Professional Sequence Requirements: There are three components in this program that continue throughout the 301 - 304 sequence. The components are: 1) Participation as an active member of a community of learners; 2) Inquiry into teaching and learning; and 3) Reflective writing about self, about self as a student of teaching, as a student of students, and as a teacher of mathematics for the twenty-first century. These requirements are meant to be cumulative across the four semesters and to be integrated with the other courses in the professional sequence. While grades in C&I 301 - 303 will be based (primarily) upon performance within individual courses, grades in the C&I 304 course will be based (primarily) upon the cumulative performance across semesters.