The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics has a new president, J. Michael Shaughnessy, who has just written a column highlighting some top agenda items for the group.
The first—surprise, surprise—is its work on the Common Core State Standards Initiative. The group will continue to provide “perspective” on the standards themselves and on their implementation across the country, Shaughnessy writes.
Second, the council will follow up on recommendations for research and practice the NCTM has just issued in a report focused on “linking research and practice.” The council recently assembled some 60 math education researchers and classroom teachers for a four-day working conference to examine strengthening that link.
Third, the council has launched several new task forces to “create and promote innovative ways” to implement the NCTM vision for emphasizing “reasoning and sense making as the primary goals in all mathematics classrooms,” Shaughnessy explains, “particularly secondary school classrooms.”
Shaughnessy, who became president of the NCTM last month, will serve a two-year term. He succeeds Hank Kepner. Shaughnessy was the director of the math education Ph.D. program at Portland State University from 1996 to 2008. In addition to that work, he taught for 18 years at Oregon State University and has held visiting professorships in Spain, Australia, and New Zealand.