From the joint meeting desk of the ICMI EC in Bangkok, by Susanne Prediger, member of the ICMI EC 2021-2024 (Germany)

Deepening Conversations, Initiating Cooperations

Nowadays, international or regional associations can be governed by online video conferences, can’t they? Yes and No. Of course, the ICMI EC succeeded in the last two years to keep in contact and work through the current administrative necessities. But for developing strategies for the future, for deepening conversations, and initiating collaborations, in-person meetings are so much more valuable! We have just come back from the intense meeting in Bangkok in February, 2023. For the first three days we have worked among the ICMI EC, and we then spent two intense days with representatives from our CANP initiatives for five under-resourced regions. In both meetings, we have profoundly experienced these differences between online meetings and in-person meetings.

Working for the Strength of ICMI

It is always fascinating to see how many researchers engage enthusiastically in the work for our affiliated organizations, the ICMI Studies, the preparation of ICME-15 in Sydney in 2024, and many other occasions. It is this amazing voluntary engagement that keeps the academic discipline going, also in times of crisis.

When discussing new directions for the future, the exchange with the mathematics discipline was crucial, in particular with the new Secretary General and President of IMU, Christoph Sorger and Hiraku Nakajima, who were with us for the whole meeting.

Besides the regular topics of the EC agenda (such as our international Congresses in 2024 and 2028, frequent feedback from all affiliated organizations, completing old and launching new ICMI Studies), new topics have emerged during the conversation.

One example is the challenges that many associations have with publication strategies. Although many institutions strive for open-access strategies, challenges still occur when publishers want to claim exclusive publication rights that some universities are not allowed to grant anymore. More exchange will be needed to work out how to overcome these difficulties with the current or with new publisher partners.

In particular, the group of country representatives was identified as the group of people whose cooperation can fuel the regular exchanges of experiences between all countries, and for this purpose, we have started working on a new program design for the ICMI General Assembly for Sydney in July 2024.

Working for Improving Mathematics Teacher Education in Under-resourced Countries

Particularly insightful was the meeting with 12 CANP representatives from 5 developing regions organized by ICMI Vice President Anjum Halai. A longer report of the CANP meeting is printed in this newsletter.

It was fascinating to see how the CANP activities continued to grow in the different regions, with established conferences, workshops, and even newly established PhD programs. Video conferences are increasingly used for professional development programs in remote areas – with impressive numbers of several thousands participating mathematics teachers!

An additional key target group has been identified for future activities, pre-service and in-service mathematics teacher educators in under-resourced countries. Not all of them might be involved in research, and some of them work in isolation, as the only person in mathematics teacher education in their institutions. And still, they are the key stakeholders for strengthening teacher education. Some countries have shown that professional development for mathematics teacher educators can achieve promising multiplier effects. Thus, creating communities of mathematics teacher educators is a key for the future work in the CANPs.

We are looking forward to contributing to these highly interesting activities!

^{Members of the ICME EC at the EC meeting in Bangkok in February 2023: from left to right: Núria Planas, Mercy Kazima, Lena Koch (ICMI Administrative Manager), Anjum Halai (ICMI Vice President), Jean-Luc Dorier (ICMI Secretary General), Merrilyn Goos (ICMI Vice President), Paolo Piccione, Frederick K. S. Leung (ICMI President), Susanne Prediger, Hiraku Nakajima (IMU President), Christoph Sorger (IMU Secretary General). Three members were participating online: Marta Civil, Jill Adler and Patricio Felmer.}

The International Commission on Mathematical Instruction (ICMI) launches the first two steps of the Process of Election of the ICMI Executive Committee (EC) for the 2025-2028 term in office:

Professor Abraham Arcavi was appointed as the Chairperson of the Nominating Committee (NC) that is in charge of the composition of the slate that will be presented towards the election of the ICMI EC 2025-2028.

ICMI invites ICMI representatives to submit nominations for each of the ICMI EC positions: ICMI President, ICMI Secretary-General, ICMI Vice-Presidents (2), ICMI EC Members-at-Large (5).

Nominations for President and Secretary-General must be received by April 1, 2023, and nominations for the other positions must be received by June 1, 2023.

All nominations should be sent to Abraham Arcavi (abraham.arcavi@weizmann.ac.il), Chair of the Nominating Committee, from an official e-mail address of the AO/ICMI representative and cc-ed to the ICMI president (icmi.president@mathunion.org).

Subsequently, the NC will form the slate to be presented towards the election of the next ICMI EC. This election will take place at the ICMI General Assembly, on July 7, 2024 in Sydney - one day prior to the ICME-15.

For further details, please consult the following website: https://www.mathunion.org/icmi/nomination-members-icmi-ec-2025-2028

Second Meeting of ICME-15 IPC - Sydney - February 6-8, 2023

Preparations for ICME-15, which is now less than 18 months, away are progressing well. The International Program Committee held its second meeting in Sydney from February 6 to 8. Topic Study Group teams have prepared their Description Papers, and these are available on the ICME-15 website to assist you with choosing a TSG and targeting your submissions appropriately.

At ICME-15 it will be possible to participate in two TSGs – one from each strand. Submissions of 4 page papers or 1 page poster proposals are now open and due in August 2023.

The Second Announcement will be published in May and registration will open in June. The Local Organising Committee continues to work hard to ensure that the congress includes a full and engaging social program, an Early Career Researcher day and program that will provide participants with invaluable information and networking opportunities, multiple publication opportunities, and an engaging public outreach program. We are also actively considering ways of ensuring ICME-15 has a lasting legacy.

Any questions or comments about the congress can be emailed to info@icme15.com.

Important dates and deadlines for ICME-15:
* Proposals for Discussions groups are now open
* March 1, 2023: Submission for TSG Papers and Poster processes opened
* May 1, 2023: Proposals for Workshops open
* June 1, ICME-15 congress registration opens
* June 1, Solidarity fund applications open
* August 15, 2023 deadline to submit TSG posters and Papers
* November 1, 2023 Proposals for Discussion Groups and Workshops close
* November 30, 2023 Solidarity Fund Applications closes
* March 31, 2024 Early Bird Registration closes ICME-15.

ICMI is hosting a one-day symposium on March 20, 2023, to act as a gathering point for scholars working in what might be diverse areas, but whose concerns could be broadly grouped together as “socio-ecological”.

We imagine the socio-ecological may have resonance for scholars working in the following areas (but not restricted to): critical mathematics education, climate change education, Indigenous ways of knowing, ethnomathematics, decolonial and antiracist perspectives, mathematical modelling, STEM approaches, arts-based research, and other interdisciplinary work involving mathematics or theoretical approaches that address the socio-ecological aspect. Such areas of scholarship commonly include multiple-stakeholders such as teachers, community educators, learners, community-members, scholars of various disciplines, and we encourage contributions that are inclusive in this regard.

The aims of the symposium are as follows:

• To gather the “state of the art” of socio-ecological research from around the world and engage in dialogue across perspectives.
• To explore the different ways in which a theorization of the socio-ecological influences the focus and methodological approach of mathematics education research.
• To consider practical implications of socio-ecological research for school/university curriculum and pedagogy, education outside formal structures, teacher preparation, and policy.

With these aims, the symposium will contribute to knowledge building, relating to mathematics education and the socio-ecological, and, moreover, it has the potential to lead to a proposal for consideration as an ICMI Study on the topic.

To cater for participants in different time zones, two symposia with be held, with an overlapping Plenary talk. Symposium 1 will be held from 09:30-15:10 GMT and Symposium 2 from 14:00-19:30 GMT. For more information, see the announcement.

Attendance at the symposium is free, but you do need to register using the links below. The Zoom link will then be sent to you the day before the symposium.

Registration for Symposium 1

Registration for Symposium 2

Program

This symposium is a collaborative initiative, supported by ICMI, involving Kate le Roux, Alf Coles, Richard Barwell, Marcelo Borba, Anna Chronaki, Rochelle Gutiérrez, Mariam Makramalla, Aldo Parra, Milton Rosa, Armando Solares, and Jayasree Subramanian.

As we already advertised in previous issues, ICMI has launched the 26th ICMI Study on “Advances in geometry education”.

The International Program Committee (IPC) consists of:

Co-chairs
Angel Gutiérrez - University of Valencia, Spain
Thomas Lowrie - University of Canberra, Australia

Members

Cathy Bruce - Trent University, Canada
Fabien Emprin - University of Reims, France
Keith Jones - University of Southampton, UK
Roza Leikin - University of Haifa, Israel
Lisnet Mwadzaangati - University of Malawi, Malawi
Oi-Lam Ng - Chinese University of Hong Kong, China
Yukari Okamoto - University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB), USA
Milton Rosa - Universidade Federal de Ouro Preto, Brazil
Manuel Santos-Trigo - CINVESTAV, Instituto Politécnico Nacional, Mexico

Ex-officio members
Frederick Leung (ICMI President) - The University of Hong Kong, China
Jean-Luc Dorier (ICMI Secretary-General) - University of Geneva, Switzerland

The first meeting of the IPC has just been held on February 23-25, 2023 in Valencia, and we are grateful to the University of Valencia (Vicerrectorado de Investigación of the Universitat de València) for partially funding this meeting.

Members of the 26th ICMI Study IPC

The Discussion Document (DD) which details the study and is a call for contributions will be widely disseminated by early April.

The Study conference will be held in Reims (France), on April 23-26, 2024. The deadline for submitting an 8-page paper will be around mid-September 2023.

In the meantime, if you have any views or suggestions on this Geometry Study, please feel free to contact the co-chairs : Angel (Angel.Gutierrez@uv.es) or Tom (Thomas.Lowrie@canberra.edu.au).

by Anjum Halai, ICMI Vice-President in charge of CANP

The Capacity and Network Project (CANP) is a flagship program of the International Commission on Mathematical Instruction (ICMI). To date ICMI has supported five CANPs. One of the two ICMI Vice Presidents Anjum Halai provides overall coordination of the CANPs and each CANP is supported by an ICMI EC member acting as a liaison person as noted in the table below. On February 15th -16, 2023, a workshop of all five CANPS was conducted in Bangkok. This was a significant event because all CANP teams and the ICMI Executive Committee (EC) were meeting in-person for the first time since the COVID pandemic. Moreover, several new members had joined CANP, and it was important for them to meet with the larger group and with the ICMI EC. Representatives of the International Mathematics Union also attended the workshop.

The workshop aimed to further the dual goals of CANP, namely: a) Create sustained and effective regional networks in low-income and middle-income countries of teachers, mathematics educators and mathematicians, also linking these networks to international support networks, to enhance mathematics education at all levels, b) Develop the educational capacity of those responsible for mathematics teachers.

The workshop was highly interactive. CANP representatives made presentations and engaged in small and large group discussions. The language of the workshop was English. To enable participation of all, EC member Nuria Planas Raig offered facilitation in Spanish and Jean-Luc Dorier similarly facilitated communication in French.

Key conclusions drawn included: a) It was easier to establish a regional association when national associations had already been established, b) There was considerable ongoing activity on the ground to promote mathematics education research, c) A significant challenge was limited availability of qualified teachers. Additionally in-service teacher education was not institutionalized in most CANP regions, as the focus remained on pre-service teacher education, d) A goal of CANP activity was to improve the quality of mathematics teaching in classrooms and members agreed to specify what was entailed in quality and how could it be assessed.

It was noted that ICMI had several highly relevant resources and support mechanisms available for the CANPs. These include the following: a) ICMI newsletter, which could be subscribed here b) AMOR project, c) ICMI data base that collects highly valuable information about national syllabus, standards and education structures. d) International networks through international conferences:

• Visit ICME in Sydney
• ICMI study conference on geometry (see details in this issue)
• ICMI online symposium on socio-ecological perspectives. (see details in this issue)

Participants deemed the workshop as a highly successful event that provided an opportunity to:

• Bring together early entrants to CANP and the more experienced CANP leaders to meet collectively with ICMI EC, members of the IMU, to share progress update, success, and challenges,
• Engage collectively in reflection and analysis on key issues of salience to mathematics education,
• Identify barriers and challenges to sustainability of CANPs,
• Identify support within and externally to address the challenges and deal with barriers.

In going forward CANP representatives would develop an Action Plan in consultation with the mathematics education community in their regions and their respective EC Liaison. The Action Plan would focus on strategies to achieve the goals of CANP in the contextual realities of their respective regions. Representatives would submit the Action Plans to their respective EC Liaison by or before their agreed upon deadline.

The workshop concluded with ICMI President Fredrick Leung thanking all CANP participants, EC members and especially the IMU representatives. He noted that the presence of IMU was a testament of the great support by community of mathematicians to the community of mathematics educators, who were both working towards the common goal of promoting mathematics.

For further information on CANP please see the CANP website.

Compiled by Anjum Halai with input from ICMI EC members.

12-16 December 2022 - Cotonou - Benin

The conference of the Espace Mathématique Francophone (EMF 2022) took place in a totally face-to-face mode in Cotonou (Benin) from Monday December 12 to Friday December 16, 2022 (preceded by the young teachers project from Thursday December 8 to Sunday December 11, 2022).

Despite the postponement of one year due to the pandemic, the conference gathered 164 participants from 21 nationalities (57 from Benin, 30 from France, 23 from Canada, 9 from Senegal, 7 from Ivory Coast, and Cameroon, 6 from Switzerland, 4 from Morocco, 3 from Mali, 2 from Algeria, Burkina Faso, Gabon, Italy, Togo and Tunisia, 1 from Argentina, Belgium, Chili, Congo, Greece and Niger).

The program can be found at on the conference website and the proceeding will be available online within a few months.

Dates: June 7 to June 10, 2023.
Location: Athens, Greece

The 16th International Conference on Technology in Mathematics Teaching, also known as ICTMT 16, will adopt a transformational approach to Mathematics Education Plenary and panel guests: Osama Swidan (Israel), Nathalie Sinclair (Canada), Alison Clark-Wilson and Manolis Mavrikis (UK), Marcelo Milrad (Sweden)
Registration opened on December 12, 2022.

For more information visit the conference website.

Dates: July 2 to 6, 2023
Location: Newcastle, Australia

Theme of the conference is “Weaving mathematics education research from all perspectives”
More information can be found on the website.

Dates: July 30 to August 4, 2023
Location: Peru, at the University of Lima, in person.
 

CIAEM (Conferencia interamericana de educacion mathematica)/ IACME Inter-American Conference on Mathematics Education.

More information can be found on the CIAEM website.

Dates: July 9 to 14, 2023
Location: Budapest, Hungary

CERME13 will take place in Budapest, Hungary1½ years after CERME12 and 1½ years before CERME14, planned for February 2025.
Find out more about CERME13 on the website.

Dates: July 16 to 21, 2023
Location: Haifa, Israel

Annual conference of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education
Theme of the conference is “Mathematics education for global sustainability.” More information on the website.
 

Dates: July 7 to July 14, 2024
Location: Sydney, Australia

Read here the first announcement. Find out more on the website.