Teaching the ‘New Math’ of the Common Core: Math Wars Redux? A Report from the Trenches

When: Thursday, November 6, 2014; 6:00pm – 8:00pm

Where: The Free Library of Philadelphia, Room 405

If a recent, widely read and publicized article is any indication, mathematics education is once again a hot topic in the public sphere (July 23, 2014, New York Times Magazine, “Why Do Americans Stink at Math?”). Parents, politicians, and others continue to speculate about the ills of the American educational system and how to address them. Math ability, in particular, is seen as both a gatekeeper to students’ academic success and as a key component of an educated and facile “workforce-of-the-future.” With the advent of the Common Core State Standards Initiative—contested by both the political left and the political right, as well as pop-culture luminaries like Louis C.K.—the “math wars” of the 1990’s appear to be resurfacing.

Join Josh Taton for a lively, interactive discussion and Q&A session about the Common Core, trends in math curriculum-development, and other topics in math education research. Josh will also highlight an effort to reshape how teachers and students think about mathematics and the teaching-and-learning enterprise in his work with the Philadelphia Area Math Teachers’ Circle (PAMTC). Josh is a Yale alumnus (SY’98, Mathematics) and current Ph.D. candidate in the Division of Teaching, Learning, and Leadership at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education (PennGSE).

Please contact Josh Taton (jtaton@upenn.edu) with questions about the discussion

Tickets are free, but an RSVP is requested by November 4th, 2014. Click HERE to RSVP.