Jere Confrey's plenary at PME-NA

The second plenary at PME-NA was “Articulating a learning sciences foundation for learning trajectories in the CCSS-M” by Jere Confrey. In her presentation, Professor Confrey explained how the learning trajectories were connected with the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics. Having been a member of the National Validation Committee for the Common Core State Standards, she was able to give some more personal (and very interesting) insights into the development of the common core standards. The details are laid out in her paper (see the proceedings). As part of her talk, she also shared some of her own experiences with the math war that appears to be going on (and which Jo Boaler talked about in her plenary yesterday). Having listened to her presentation, however interesting it was, I am happy to be a spectator from another country - both when it comes to the CCSS and the ongoing math wars :-)

Towards the end of her presentation, she shared some ideas about the importance of unpacking. She argued, and I very much agree, that interpretation of the standards really matters. She also returned to one of her main issues in the development of the standards, where she had argued strongly about defining multiplication as repeated addition.

The last couple of minutes, she shared some very interesting information about the development of a tablet-based curriculum (see the Wireless Generation website). She also argued that this would change research, and we need to mobe on this! Personally, I would have liked to listen to an entire plenary on this, but then again I'm not the one who makes the calls :-)