[ICMI-News] ICMI Newsletter March 2016

[Lena Koch]

ICMI Newsletter
A Newsletter from the ICMI-International Commission on Mathematical Instruction

Editors:
Abraham Arcavi (ICMI Secretary General) 
Cheryl E. Praeger (ICMI Vice President)

Email addresses:
ICMI_Secretary-General at mathunion.org  
Cheryl.praeger at uwa.edu.au

Graphic Design/ Layout:
Lena Koch (ICMI Administrator)
Pragnya Challapalli (Assistant IMU Secretariat)


1. EDITORIAL - From the desk of Shigefumi Mori, President of The International Mathematical Union (IMU) and Ex-officio member of the ICMI Executive Committee.

I have been serving the International Mathematical Union (IMU) as President since January 2015. Over the period since I served IMU previously (1995-2002), I noticed several changes, among which was the relationship with ICMI.

IMU used to appoint the ICMI Executive Committee (EC) at the time of my previous service, but now ICMI itself elects the ICMI EC with the collaboration of IMU. ICMI has become closer to IMU through this collaboration.

ICMI is crucial for IMU because education and research cannot be separated from each other. 

ICMI and IMU's Commission on Developing Countries (CDC) function together for mathematics in developing countries like the two wheels of a cart, since ICMI improves and develops education systems while CDC sends volunteer lecturers and offers fellowships for Ph.D. students. 

IMU EC members share the duties; living in Japan, I cover Asia while other EC members cover their geographic areas. My first physical involvement with ICMI involved my participation in the ICMI EC meeting and an ICMI Study conference in Macau in May/June 2015. 

The latter was planned and run jointly by the local and foreign co-chairs of ICMI Study 23 with support from the University of Macau. I saw that the support and cooperation of ICMI and IMU were essential throughout these activities. I also attended an international conference in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, organized by the South East Asian Mathematical Society (SEAMS) in August 2015, where I met representatives of mathematical societies in Southeast Asia as well as those in Japan and Korea.

There was an opportunity to discuss with them the Mathematical Union of Asia (MUA) which they were trying to form. I saw that the presence of IMU promoted their dialogue toward establishing the MUA. I sincerely wish that their efforts will lead to a fruitful result, and at the same time I hope to see more interactions between Japanese mathematics educators and their Asian colleagues.

Recently I talked about these visits to a Japanese mathematician who is a good friend of mine.  I found out that he had known all the places I visited in Indonesia. He had spent an extended period of time in Asia including several months in Indonesia when he was a student. Furthermore he has been giving a short course for graduate students every year since 2007 in Cambodia.

It was a wonderful surprise that a close friend of mine had already been achieving what I hoped to see happen.

I was very pleased to learn this and I look forward to exploring new links to mathematics education, both inside as well as outside Japan.

Shigefumi Mori, University of Kyoto, Japan.


2.  CANP 5, Lima, Peru, February 1-12, 2016
Chair of International Program Committee: Yuriko Yamamoto Baldin (liaison ICMI), Universidade Federal de Sao Carlos, Sao Carlos, Sao Paulo, Brazil Chair of Local Organizing Committee: Uldarico Malaspina Jurado Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru (PUCP).

The CANP 5 (The Fifth Capacity and Network Project) was run at the wonderful installations of the Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru (PUCP), in Lima, over the period February 1-12, 2016. Four countries, namely Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru of the Andean Region, and Paraguay, sent delegates to the CANP 5 program. The participants from those countries believed that sharing their efforts and capacities would accelerate the development of a strong collaborative community of mathematicians and mathematics educators, and that, in turn, this would lead to an improvement of the quality of mathematics education at all levels. 

The scientific program focused on the education of teachers and professional development for in-service teachers. The topics ranged through curriculum issues, assessment, development of mathematical thinking, and interactions between mathematics, mathematics education, science and technology. The 41 delegates profited from the contributions of IPC members present at the event, and the invited lecturers and workshop conductors from several national and international communities. Around fifty school teachers registered to participate in the sessions open to the general public, all of which were webcast live, as well as in the 2-day program on school mathematics content. 

As a result of CANP5 a network has been formed, the Comunidad de Educacion Matematica de America del Sur 
(CEMAS). It has a website which can be accessed through a link from the site of REDUMATE (REDUMATE is associated to IACME-CIAEM, which is affiliated to ICMI.) The CANP 5 participants feel that linking to this and other networks will promote their growth as a community. This influenced the name CEMAS chosen for the network, and indeed CEMAS expects other countries of South America to join so that together they may build a solid network. 

The CANP5 has received important support from the Institutions of participant countries and CIAEM, but most significantly from the PUCP and the Ministry of Education of Peru that honored the program by sending high-level representatives to the inauguration and closing ceremonies.

REDUMATE: http://ciaem-redumate.org/redregional/?q=node/3

3. ICME 13 UPDATE

Preparations for ICME-13 are very intensive and all is proceeding as expected and on time thanks to the professional expertise of the Convenor Gabriele Kaiser and the Local Organising Committee chaired by Marianne Nolte.
A recent preparation stage was successfully concluded by the Solidarity Grant Committee (appointed by the IPC of ICME-13). As it is a tradition of ICMEs and in order to ensure and maximize balanced representation from all over the world among the presenters, as well as among the general participants, a solidarity fund was established to assist delegates from non-affluent countries to attend the ICMEs. The funds are assigned on the basis of applications submitted from all over the world to the Solidarity Grant Committee. In addition to ICME funds, the Bosch Foundation granted a considerable amount of money to support exclusively African mathematics educators, because this continent is the special focus of the foundation. These funds enabled 51 scholars from 19 African countries to be supported in addition to those supported by the regular solidarity fund. Furthermore, the Federal Ministry of Education and Research of Germany assigned additional money to support more scholars from less-affluent countries.

602 applications for support were received, and the funds available were sufficient to offer varying amounts of support to a total of 231 participants from 66 countries. The selection criteria focused on the quality of the submitted paper or poster, the role of the applicant at the congress, the economic situation of the country of origin of the applicant, geographic representation, gender balance and the situation of mathematics education in the applicant's country.

The general submission process for papers and posters has concluded, and the only additional 
submissions expected are papers for which extensions were requested. The submissions received are as follows: 

-	546 posters (now under review)
-	1186 papers were accepted for presentation in oral communication sessions attached to the 54 Topic Study Groups
-	836 papers will be presented within the Topic Study Groups
-	47 Workshops and 43 Discussion Groups will be offered.

The programme will be complemented by an Early Career Researcher Day, which will take place on Sunday, July 24th 2016, immediately before the congress and will cover many interesting themes led by prominent international scholars. In addition teachers activities will be offered lasting for three days and will be run in German.

For more news on ICME-13 please visit the detailed website http://www.icme13.org/ which is updated on an ongoing basis.

4. ICMI STUDIES

ICMI is happy to announce the recent publication of the following two ICMI Studies.

ICMI Study 21
Mathematics Education and Language Diversity
Editors: Barwell, R., Clarkson, P., Halai, A., Kazima, M., Moschkovich, J., Planas, N., Phakeng, M., Valero, P., Villavicencio Ubillús, M.. (Eds.)
www.springer.com/gp/book/9783319145105

ICMI Study 22 
Task Design In Mathematics Education
Editors: Watson, Anne, Ohtani, Minoru (Eds.)
www.springer.com/gp/book/9783319096285


ICMI Study 23 Primary Mathematics on Whole Numbers 
is now at an advanced stage of production and it is expected to be published towards the end of 2016.


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