National Centre for Excellence in Teaching Mathematics

The National Centre for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics (NCETM) is an institution set up in the wake of the Smith Report

Adrian Smith (academic)

Sir Adrian Frederick Melhuish Smith FRS is a distinguished British statistician and formerly Principal of Queen Mary, University of London. He was previously at Imperial College, London where he was head of the Mathematics Department. He is a member of the governing body of the London Business...

to improve mathematics

Mathematics

Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...

teaching

Teacher

A teacher or schoolteacher is a person who provides education for pupils and students . The role of teacher is often formal and ongoing, carried out at a school or other place of formal education. In many countries, a person who wishes to become a teacher must first obtain specified professional...

in England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

.

It provides strategic leadership for mathematics-specific CPD and aims to raise the professional status of all those engaged in the teaching of mathematics so that the mathematical potential of learners will be fully realised.

Structure

Its Director is Celia Hoyles, OBE, Professor of Mathematics Education at the Institute of Education

Institute of Education

The Institute of Education is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom specialised in postgraduate study and research in the field of education and a constituent college of the federal University of London. It is the largest education research body in the United Kingdom, with...

, University of London and former chief adviser on mathematics education for the government.

An innovative NCETM development is the MatheMaPedia project, masterminded by John Mason, which is a "maths teaching wiki

Wiki

A wiki is a website that allows the creation and editing of any number of interlinked web pages via a web browser using a simplified markup language or a WYSIWYG text editor. Wikis are typically powered by wiki software and are often used collaboratively by multiple users. Examples include...

Improvements to maths teaching

The NCETM's Evidence Bulletin http://www.ncetm.org.uk/Default.aspx?page=13&module=res&mode=100&resid=4467, available only to those logged in to the site, asks "How can you use research evidence to enhance your mathematics teaching?" It covers themes such as the following:

How can we encourage students to work hard?
How to build on intuitive ways of working
What makes some teachers more effective than others?
How to encourage effective discussion.
How can whiteboard
Whiteboard
A whiteboard is a name for any glossy, usually white surface for nonpermanent markings. Whiteboards are analogous to chalkboards, allowing rapid marking and erasing of markings on their surface...

s make learning interactive?
Gaze aversion and teaching.

Emphases of the NCETM include:

Continual Professional Development (CPD
Collaborative Professional Development
CPD in the context of NCETM means Collaborative Professional Development .The essence of "Collaborative" is that teachers work in groups and develop skills together...

)
Mathematics teaching and learning.

Extensive website

The website, which anyone can join, offers special areas dedicated to early years, primary secondary, post-16 and new approaches to teaching and learning. Members can create their own personalised learning space within a social networking site, where they can share ideas with others and ask for inspiration.

The NCETM hosts online courses as well as real-world http://www.ncetm.org.uk/coursesandevents and workshops

Online discussions

Special online events have included the world’s first online discussion of proof

Proof

Proof may refer to:* Proof , sufficient evidence or argument for the truth of a proposition* Formal proof* Mathematical proof, a convincing demonstration that some mathematical statement is necessarily true...

, the launch of ground-breaking report Mathematics Matters, led by Malcolm Swan at the University of Nottingham

University of Nottingham

The University of Nottingham is a public research university based in Nottingham, United Kingdom, with further campuses in Ningbo, China and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia...

, and videos of Teachers Talking Theory: in Action, a new professional development resource created by and featuring primary and secondary teachers in the South West of England.

Discussion forums track ICT in mathematics teaching and the Bowland case studies, newly in schools from September 2008 to enliven the teaching of key "stage 3 mathematics."

Annual conference

At the NCETM annual conference 2008, Sir Peter Williams launched the Review of Primary Mathematics, which called for a mathematics specialist in every primary school by 2015, amounting to improved and ongoing training for 13,000 primary teachers. Lord Adonis, representing the government, welcomed the report and agreed to its implementation.

Structure

Improvements to maths teaching

Extensive website

Online discussions

Annual conference

See also

News items