Milwaukee Mathematics Partnership

IHE Network Conference

Mathematical Knowledge Needed for Teaching

in K-12 and Collegiate Mathematics

and

The Role of Definition in Mathematics Instruction

August 25-26, 2005

Carroll College, Waukesha, Wisconsin

Hyman Bass
Professor of Mathematics and Mathematics Education, University of Michigan. A member of the National Academy of Sciences and past president of the American Mathematical Society. His mathematical research interests include algebraic K-theory, commutative algebra and algebraic geometry, algebraic groups, and geometric methods in group theory. Since 1996 he has collaborated with Ball and her research group on the knowledge and resources entailed in the teaching of mathematics. /

Deborah Ball

Professor of Mathematics Education and Teacher Education, and Director of Teacher Education, University of Michigan. Her work focuses on studies of instruction and of the processes of learning to teach. She also directs several research projects that investigate efforts to improve teaching through policy, reform initiatives, and teacher education.

You are invited to attend a two-day IHE Network Conference where participants can share in the conjectures and observations of the work of Deborah Ball and Hyman Bass. In their quest to describe the mathematical knowledge needed for teaching, Ball and Bass have observed that teaching requires extensive mathematical problem solving, which occurs constantly as teachers:

  • Unpack familiar ideas, procedures, and principles;
  • Understand the role of definitions, and choose and use them skillfully;
  • Know what constitutes an adequate explanation or justification;
  • Use representations with care;
  • Make sense of methods and solutions different from one’s own;
  • Learn to size up alternative methods, determine their adequacy, and compare them.

Conference sessions

  • The role and significance of definitions in mathematics instruction.This joint presentation by Ball and Bass is based on their interviews with calculus students as well as extensive work in the mathematical preparation of elementary/middle school mathematics teachers.
  • Calculus students’ grasp of mathematical definition. What do undergraduate students actually know?Information based on interviews with Calculus students and focus on thinking at the undergraduate level.
  • Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching (MKT). Presentation and discussion focusing on the collaborative work of Ball and Bass in determining the mathematical knowledge teachers need to know, as called for in the AMS-MAA 2001 report, The Mathematical Education of Teachers. Their work expands on findings from their 2004 Institutes (sampled at the August 2004 IHE Network Conference).
  • The relevance of MKT to instructional quality and student learning.A session in which participants focus on questions of evidence of the relevance of MKT to instructional quality and student learning. Findings are based on the evaluation measures work of Ball and Bass and others.

Conference sessions are highly interactive with substantial use of video materials.
Qualified IHE conference participants will receive a $50 per day stipend.

For further information:

Contact: Alan Rank at UWM, 414-229-6646,

The Milwaukee Mathematics Partnership (MM)P is supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. EHR-0314898.