Brown Bag Teaching/Learning Seminar #9
Guy Brousseau (twice!)

Currently, thanks in part to the Milliman research visitor funds, I am having a splendid couple of weeks working on issues in the learning of probability with Guy and Nadine Brousseau. Guy is a professor at the University of Bordeaux, and the originator of the mathematics education research program entitled Didactique, or the Theory of Situations, and Nadine provided the classroom, the record-keeping and many provocative questions for much of his experimentation.

On Thursday, April 22, Guy will make two presentations. First he will speak at a Brown Bag. For that he will be discussing a portion of the theory which is pertinant at every level of mathematics:the didactical transposition. This is the alteration which mathematics necessarily undergoes in the process of being made communicable, whether to fellow mathematicians or to students. It is neither evil nor avoidable, but being conscious of it can open up some interesting lines of thinking.

The Brown Bag will take place at 12:30 in the Math Lounge.

Later on the same day, Guy will take part in the forum described below. His two presentations will be related, though (needless to say) the former will not be a prerequisite to the latter.

The Mathematics Department, College of Education and K-12 Institute invite you to a forum:

New Math: What was wrong, AND WHAT WASN'T?

New Math has, over the past couple of decades, come in for more jabs, jeers and general joking than any other aspect of mathematics education. Some of these are probably deserved, but many result from misapprehensions. Our panel discussion will be led by Ginger Warfield (Mathematics Department, U.W.) whose father was heavily involved in the development of the New Math; Sheryl Burgstahler (Information Systems, Computing & Communications, U.W.), who used and enjoyed the New Math materials as a classroom teacher; and Guy Brousseau (Mathematics Education, University of Bordeaux) who analysed some of the problems which developed during its use.

After each panelist has presented his or her perspective on the subject, we will all address the fundamental issue: what should we have learned or be learning from the history of the New Math?

The forum will take place on Thursday, April 22 in Room 411, Miller Hall. There will be coffee and cookies at 3:30 and the talks will begin at 4:00.

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