About Mission: Algebra

Mission: Algebra is designed to provide guidance to district and school leaders in addressing the question: How can technology support teachers and students in getting students ready for Algebra I? The intended audience is school leaders - those with the responsibility to make program decisions or to advise decision-makers about these topics:
• middle school mathematics,
• professional development of the teaching staff, and
• the acquisition and deployment of technology.

The site includes standards-based classroom examples and is grounded in standards, informed by the experiences of practitioners, and guided by available research and theory.

In addition to school leaders, we expect the site will be of high interest to a wide variety of educators as they address the new federal priority of getting all students ready for challenging mathematical content in high school (No Child Left Behind legislation).

1. Background on Classroom Examples 2. Credits 3. Acknowledgments 4. Terms of Use 5. Privacy Policy

1. Background on Classroom Examples

This website includes a set of classroom examples that aim to capture exemplary practices in the use of technology in the teaching and learning of mathematics. They were each constructed with consideration of three key standards documents (see Guidance for expert panels).

In selecting the content for these classroom examples, we aimed to create examples that are likely to spark discussion between district curriculum people and district technology people to help them cross what is too often a "great divide." We shaped the mathematics content to be of interest to district leaders with curriculum expertise (especially expertise in mathematics); similarly, we shaped the technology content to be of interest to district directors of technology and technology coaches, since it illustrates a range of technologies that are accessible today in typical school settings.

We also shaped these classroom examples by using a consistent model of learning: in each example, students explore, experiment, and investigate before moving to development of procedural knowledge, and the teachers' role is to help the class draw out the key concepts from their direct experiences. There are certainly many other models of learning that we could have chosen, for example, lessons where students focus on skill development through repetitive practice (these lessons would make use of "drill-n-kill" software rather than the tools used in these examples). The approach we selected is consistent with the NCTM's Principles and Standards for School Mathematics as well as reflective of the experience of TERC (and many others) in developing mathematics curricula and supporting schools to implement them.

Finally, through these examples, we wanted to emphasize that, while technology may bring a new set of experiences to mathematics learning, it also has the potential to help students experience classical mathematical tasks and problems in new ways. Several of our examples represent classic mathematics tasks made richer by the availability of technology (e.g., Understanding Pi, Pythagorean Theorem, and The Broken Calculator).

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2. Credits

Mission: Algebra is a project of NEIRTEC, one of the ten regional technology in education consortia (RTECs) funded by the U.S. Department of Education. NEIRTEC is a collaboration of Education Development Center, Inc. (EDC), TERC, Learning Innovations at WestEd, the Education Alliance at Brown University, and Sun Associates. TERC is the partner responsible for developing and maintaining the site.

The content for the Mission: Algebra website was developed by a team that included Peter Brandt, Alan Feldman, Diane Hilser, Scott Moore, Jill Weber (all at TERC), and Peg Bondorew. The design for the site was developed by Bryce Flynn (TERC).

We appreciate the assistance of colleagues who provided feedback and detailed reviews during development: Pam Buffington, David Carraher, Henry Derusha, Heather Haines, Martin Huntley, Kathleen Carpenter, Paula Moran, Bill Romond, Merelyn Smith, and Jessie Solomon. A special note of appreciation to Jeremy Roschelle for his review and guidance.

We appreciate the assistance of our colleagues in the NEIRTEC partner organizations in shaping the ideas during the early development process: Pam Buffington, Martin Huntley, Glenn Kleiman, Keith Nuthall, and Jan Phlegar.

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3. Acknowledgments

We are grateful to Kathleen Carpenter and the SREB for their generous permission to use material from their report, Getting Students Ready for Algebra I: What Middle Grades Students Need to Know and Be Able to Do in the creation of the Mission: Algebra website.

NCTM materials appearing on this site are used with permission from http://www.nctm.org, copyright ©2003 by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, Inc. All rights reserved. The presence of these materials does not constitute or imply an endorsement from NCTM.

Funding for this site comes from the Institute for Education Sciences (IES) (formerly, the Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI)), under contract number R302A00008. The content of this site does not necessarily reflect the views or policies of IES, the Department of Education, or any other agency of the U.S. Government.

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4. Terms of Use

The content of the Mission: Algebra website is available to anyone to read and print. We request that printing be done through the “Print Center ” button; when doing so, you will be asked to fill out a brief form (requested by the U. S. Department of Education for their technical assistance projects). We may revise the content of this site at any time. The site contains links to other sites which have their own policies about use.

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5. Privacy Policy

TERC, the NEIRTEC partner with responsibility for developing and maintaining the Mission: Algebra website, will use the personal information that you provide to identify how the site is used in order to help us improve it. To do this, your personal information will be anonymously aggregated with information provided by other users.

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