Kerry McBride

The purpose of this study is to address how we could increase effectiveness in secondary mathematics education.

Some students art finding success in learning mathematics through taking regular or honours courses, graduating from high school, and going on to post secondary studies. Other Studeflts art not finding success in post secondary studies, do not complete grade twelve mathematics in graduating, take only adjusted level mathematics courses or drop out of high school due to repeated failure in mathematics. In either case, mathematics education can only by called effective when all students reach their potential in understanding and using mathematics.

The study examines my experience with mathematics reform in the classroom of today and reviews the current li[erature to draw conclusions as to what contributes to effective teaching of mathematics. The study will address various issues of change in mathematics education. The first issue is what changes should be make. Theses change primarily center around increasing student motivation and basing learning methodologies on a student-centered facilitating model, and the major ramifications of the latter for course offering, computers in teaching and student motivation. A second issue is how to bring about these changes. This involves challenging participants to attract their attention, persuading them of the need for change and showing them how to make the necessary changes. And finally, there is the issue of why should we bother to change. The case will be made that the changes will indeed increase effectiveness in mathematics education.

Both the original classroom research and this study of it constitute action research. While the main objective of both is similar, namely, to find ways to bring about positive change in the classroom, the methodology of inqtiiry will clearly be more rigorous in this study. The fmal product will be a program designed to be a prcctical guide to further exploration and application of ideas leading to the very different mathematics classroom of tomorrow.

The program will be of interest on an individual basis to teachers, students, parents and administrators in that it will offer specific ideas for what they themselves could do and what they could reasonably expect the other participants to do. It will also be of interest to anyone wishing improved performance, specifically, in secondary mathematics and also, generally, across the school because transformation of mathematics in this fashion provides both the catalyst for, and a means of, improving school performance.