Back to NCTM San Diego: Curriculum Development

This is the summary of a presentation given at the 74th Annual NCTM Meeting, 25-28 April 1996, San Diego, CA.

There seems to be three different curricula in school mathematics today: The calculational curriculum, the conceptual curriculum, and the curriculum of processes. The first focuses on developing students' skills in the use of calculational techniques and procedures; the conceptual curriculum focuses on students' understandings of concepts and ideas; and the third focuses on the development of students' facility in the use of mathematical processes such as exploring, communicating, conjecturing, generalizing, etc. Teachers often wonder if there is time to attend to all three. Do we have to sacrifice one for the sake of the others? How can we achieve an appropriate balance among these three aspects of the school mathematics curriculum without neglecting any of them?

Alba G. Thompson (San Diego State University, San Diego, CA)

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