Welcome

Welcome to the web site of the American Mathematical Society Working Group on Preparation for Technical Careers. Our long-term goal is to improve preparation of high-achieving K-12 students for ambitious technical education at the university level.

News

Editors needed: To apply to supervise development of problems on a topic:

• Please read sample materials carefully to ensure project goals (e.g. emphasis on high-achieving students, mathematical structure) agree with your interests;
• post problems, teaching notes, etc. on the topic to illustrate your work; and
• send email to the lead editors at gro.sma|sreeraclacinhcet#gro.sma|sreeraclacinhcet indicating your interest.

Website launch at the Joint Mathematics Meeting in San Diego, Jan 6-9 2008. To those who stopped by our booth, thanks for your comments!

Immediate Objective

The current focus is on community development of annotated problem sets. These are short collections of examples that illustrate and embody educational objectives. They are not problem databases, nor are they intended to be directly used for tests or practice.

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Why problem sets?

Example problems embody educational objectives in a direct and unambiguous way. Attempts to address issues abstractly at a higher level, for instance in Standards Documents, have been ambiguous, controversial, and unproductive.

Why high-achieving students?

The mathematical community has a strong interest in, and is a natural advocate for, the most capable students. This community also - for the most part - lacks the pedagogical expertise needed to develop materials for general-level K-12 students.

Why a community effort?

The wisdom and experience of the entire community must be brought to bear: no individual or small group can cover the topics or resolve the issues involved.

More information is available in the navigation bars.

Long-term Objectives

We expect that problem sets will continue to evolve for the forseeable future. However as they reach maturity the process will change from continuous development to periodic upgrades. This will enable outside use with references to specific items.

Potential uses

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Potential uses:

• provide resources for teachers and text and curriculum authors;
• support development of better tests;
• guide development of courseware and online materials;
• make Standards documents more effective by enabling references to specific examples.

A possible future objective of the Working Group is to develop sample computer-based tests based on the materials. A related effort is being undertaken by the AMS Task Force on the first year of college mathematics, see http://firstyearmathematics.blogspot.com/ .

Participation

Do you teach calculus for math/science/engineering at a university? Got a horror story about student preparation? Design a problem that makes the difficulty obvious!

We welcome problems, annotations, and comments on everything, from everyone. To participate please join by following the "join" link in the top bar, or log in if you are already a member. Comments, new problems, etc. will be woven in by the editors, and contributors will be credited for their work. See “PROBLEM SETS” in the left bar for details.

How to participate

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How to participate:

• Think something should be changed or added? Post a comment in the Forum. Follow the "discuss" link at the bottom of a page to go to the associated thread, or go directly to the Forum.
• Want to propose a problem or annotation? Post on a “recently contributed” page, or in the Forum.
• Want to call attention to an existing problem set? Send the editors a link, or contact them to arrange sending a long file.