EDCI 650
Dr. Cooper
Fall, 1998
 

Major Position Paper (due Wednesday, December 16)

Your final assignment (aside from continued reading for class discussion) is to write an issue paper, accompanied by an abstract and an oral report, in response to NCTM's Principles and Standards for School Mathematics: Discussion Draft (1998).

This assignment has two purposes. One is to afford you the experience and knowledge you will gain from researching and writing a lengthy, scholarly paper on an issue in mathematics education. The other is to couple your experience and knowledge with the unique opportunity we have during this Year of Discussion of Standards 2000 to provide potentially valuable feedback to the NCTM on what could be the guiding document on pre·K-12 mathematics education into the next century.

Your issue paper should do one of the following:

* take exception to something written in the draft;

State the item with which you disagree, citing its location in the draft, and explain why it should be changed or eradicated in a solid, well-researched paper. * develop a strong argument to bolster some position taken in the draft; This sort of paper could be valuable to the NCTM. Many, many people will write to fuss about the draft, but I suspect far fewer will write to say "touché". You may do so, providing the Council with the sort of strong, empassioned, research-based argument to which they can point to stand entrenched in a sound position. * implore the NCTM to consider something not addressed by the Standards 2000 draft that you think ought to be addressed. If you take this approach, in addition to your explanation of why you think something should be included, tell where in the document you think the topic should be addressed and justify that placement. Like your previous position papers, your written report will describe major arguments on different sides of your issue and should be written according to the APA publication guidelines. Unlike your previous position papers, you will offer more detailed sections provided greater depth and explanation of the foundations on which you are staking your position. Your reference list should be more extensive than for your previous work. The body of your work should be in the neighborhood of five to six thousand words.

Your abstract should be a one-page, approximately 500-word summary of your written report. Have twelve copies (one for each class member and visitors) for circulation during class on Wednesday, December 16.

Both your abstract and your written report will be given to me electronically in Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) so that our reports can be made available to interested readers on the World Wide Web. More information will be provided about this in class on Wednesday, December 2.

In addition to your written report, prepare a fifteen-minute oral report of your paper. Gary Martin, the NCTM's Director of Research, will attend, and local members of the Standards writing group will be invited. How exciting!