Mathematics Institute
Mission
The Boston College Mathematics Institute was established in 1957 as a unit separate from the Mathematics Department to assist in the effort to improve content and instructional practice in mathematics at the precollege level. In the 1960's and 1970's the primary emphasis of the institute was to provide veteran teachers with renewal programs to update and deepen their background in mathematics. The majority of the programs were institutes funded by the National Science Foundation. Concurrently Institute Staff developed some supplementary instructional materials to use with students in the grades K-12.
At present, the Mathematics Institute offers some professional development opportunities for teachers in the summers at Boston College and other sites. The Institute Staff continue to produce instructional materials for teachers and students in elementary, middle, and secondary schools. Institute Staff members also collaborate with teachers in schools and school districts concerning professional development and curriculum.
History
In September 1953 as Chairman of the Department of Mathematics at Boston College I, together with some members of the faculty of the department, conducted an experimental program with students in the College of Arts and Sciences and the School of Education. The purpose of the study was to produce an integrated two year course in mathematics, emphasizing structure and using current terminology that would provide a solid foundation for the upper division course in advanced calculus. During the four year period of experimentation it became apparent that incoming freshmen had a background that was seriously lacking in fundamental concepts of contemporary mathematics, and for the most part, were unaware of the history and structure of mathematics.This led to an investigation of secondary mathematics programs. The course of study in the high school was in serious need of revision but the move toward curriculum change at school level was not taken seriously until Sputnik which focused national attention on the problems in the schools and served as a catalyst for action.
Just prior to the launching of Sputnik in October 1957, the Mathematics Institute was officially established in June as a separate budgetary unit from the Mathematics Department. The mission of the Institute was to promote and support curriculum change at the local level. Since that period the Institute has conducted special programs in professional development for teachers at Boston College and in area school districts as well as other locations nationally and internationally. Commencing in the 1960s and continuing to the present, Institute Staff have written materials for teachers to use in courses with students at various grade levels in the middle-secondary range. The student experimental texts that were produced at the Institute in the 60s placed emphasis on the historical development of mathematics and the content included motivational problems to pique student interest.
Specifically, our primary involvement in the 1950s, starting with the summer of 1957, and in the decades of the 60s and 70s was to conduct a variety of teacher institutes at Boston College under the auspices of the National Science Foundation. Our purpose in taking this action was simply that if the curriculum were to change, the teachers who would implement the change needed help in strengthening and updating their mathematical backgrounds.
The inaugural summer program for area teachers in July 1957 included presentations by Albert Meder, Executive Director of the Commission on Mathematics, Frank Verzuh, Assistant Director, MIT Computer Center, John Kemeny, Mathematics Chair, Dartmouth College and Max Beberman, Director of the University of Illinois Committee on School Mathematics. The goal of this initial workshop was to convince the teachers that significant changes in mathematics instruction were not only being seriously contemplated on the national level, they were already in development. It was especially through the liaison with Kemeny and Beberman that we developed a strong degree program for teachers that focused on mathematics courses that would expand and enrich their view of mathematics and enable them to better serve their students and society.
Thus Boston College through its Academic Year Institutes and combinations of Summer and Inservice Institutes offered veteran teachers the opportunity to renew and update as well as to earn the nonresearch Master of Arts Degree in Mathematics. In addition, to accommodate the many teachers across the country, who were remote from our campus and other campuses offering programs similar to ours, Boston College with support from the National Science Foundation initiated a distance learning program - entitled the Cooperative Unit Study Program, Courses 1 and 2- in which teacher participants were able to study mathematics on their own, solve problems and mail them to us, and get immediate feedback on the results. The content they worked on included background on mathematical concepts and topics anticipated for school level reform texts. We at the Institute continued to offer professional development programs as mathematics education on the national scene processed through periods of reform from the 'New Math' of the 1960s to the 'Back to Basics' movement of the 1970s to "Standards-based Curricula' of the 1990s.
Stanley J. Bezuszka, S.J.
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