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Guidance from Expert Panels
Overview
In creating the Standards-based Classroom Examples for the Mission:Algebra website, we took specific guidance from three reports:
• SREB’s report, Getting Students Ready for Algebra I: What Middle Grades Students Need to Know and Be Able to Do by Gene Bottoms, (published by the Southern Regional Education Board in December 2002)
• NCTM’s Principles and Standards for School Mathematics (published by NCTM in
2000)
• U. S. Department of Education Expert Panel on Educational Technology, Educational Technology Programs 2000 (published by the U.S. Department of Education in February 2002)
We selected these reports because each was the result of thorough, carefully reviewed work of an “expert panel.” While each report describes its expert panel slightly differently, they all include practitioners, administrators, policy-makers, researchers, and developers of instructional materials and/or technologies. Individuals were selected for the depth of their understanding, including their understanding of the available research literature; the group of individuals was shaped by the need for diverse experience. In the case of the first two reports which specifically focused on mathematics teaching and learning, the expert panels included mathematicians as well. In each case, the expert panels created review procedures for their work that extended well beyond the panel itself. We view these reports as representing a consensus of a group of national experts on the questions that they address; this consensus is consistent across the three reports.
The first report (SREB) provides the content structure around which we constructed the classroom examples (and offers only brief guidance about the role of technology). The second report (NCTM) clarifies the role of technology in supporting the mathematics curriculum. The third report (Expert Panel on Ed Technology) offers direction about the kinds of learning for which educational technology is best suited. These reports can also provide guidance to district leaders in designing their own district-based programs using educational technology in preparing middle school students for Algebra I.
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