Page 141 - Standards for K-12 Engineering Education

Standards for K-12 Engineering Education?

126 STANDARDS FOR K–12 ENGINEERING EDUCATION?

Technology and Engineering in National Mathematics Standards

An Agenda for Action (NCTM 1980), released in response to the “back to basics” movement of the late
1970s, became the first major document to set out a vision of mathematics education for modern times.
The Agenda called for an emphasis on problem solving over drill and practice and encouraged
mathematics educators to use calculators and computers with students in the earliest practical grade.
Other recommendations included the creation of student-centered classrooms where students could
explore mathematical concepts rather than complete worksheets. The message on computational
technology was clear: the K–12 mathematics curriculum should take advantage of calculating devices
rather than sticking with the traditional paper-and-pencil algorithms. In this report, the mathematics
education community first equated knowledge of technology with knowledge of appropriate use of
calculators and computers.

Curriculum and Evaluation Standards for School Mathematics (NCTM 1989) was developed by a
mathematics education community that had become weary of the pendulum swings in mathematics
curriculum between basics and reform and the focus on the best and brightest. The purpose of this
document was to proactively define what all students should know and be able to do. The National
Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) Commission overseeing the task had two charges:

Create a coherent vision of what it means to be mathematically literate both in a world that relies on
calculators and computers to carry out mathematical procedures and in a world where mathematics is
rapidly growing and is extensively applied in diverse fields.

Create a set of standards to guide the revision of the school mathematics curriculum and its associated
evaluation toward this vision. (NCTM, 1989, p. 1)

The document that emerged was more detailed about how teachers should teach than it was on the
specific content students should learn. Three aspects of mathematics are featured in the document:
• . . . “knowing” mathematics is “doing” mathematics. A person gathers, discovers, or creates
knowledge in the course of some activity having a purpose. . . .
• The Computer's ability to process large sets of information has made quantification and the
logical analysis of information possible in such areas as business, economics, linguistics, biology,
medicine, and sociology…However, the fundamental mathematical ideas needed in these areas
are not necessarily those studied in the traditional algebra-geometry-precalculus-calculus
sequence, a sequence designed with engineering and physical science applications in mind.
Because mathematics is a foundation discipline for other disciplines and grows in direct
proportion to its utility, we believe that the curriculum for all students must provide opportunities
to develop an understanding of mathematical models, structures, and simulations applicable to
many disciplines.
• Changes in technology and the broadening of the areas in which mathematics is applied have
resulted in growth and changes in the discipline of mathematics itself…The new technology not
only has made calculations and graphing easier, it has changed the very nature of the problems
important to mathematics and the methods mathematicians use to investigate them. (NCTM,
1989, pp. 7–8)

In one of the few overt references to engineering (cited above), the Curriculum and Evaluation Standards
deliberately seeks to expand the mathematical pre-college curriculum beyond the educational needs of
prospective scientists and engineers. Nonetheless, the following standards have some relevance to
engineering education, even though they are not described from such a perspective.

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