Our last meeting of the year will be Thursday, April 11, at St. Stephen's and St. Agnes upper school, the old St. Stephen's campus. We will discuss what happened to rigor and whether we can get it back, and also some administrative details regarding next year's calendar. Please email me or our host, Doug Adams, if you need directions.

The ISMAW web site is finally up and running again! after a year of dormancy. I apologize for my inability to adjust to the post-16 bit world. You can access information about math meets and our meetings at mathteachingtoday.com/ismaw.htm Also on the site is a proposed calendar for next year. Feel free to examine this proposed calendar and come to our next meeting with suggestions.

At our last meeting, Steve Leinwand of the NCTM gave us a wonderfully impassioned talk regarding how we teach and not so much what we teach. His talk was entitled "Less a Matter of Curriculum Change, More a Matter of Instructional Shifts." I have copies of Steve's hand-out if you would like one, although much of the content of our discussion was not in the hand-out. I have a few notes from Steve's talk, which follow.

Steve began by comparing typical Japanese instruction, where apparently there is more emphasis on understanding, with that of American and German instruction, where skill acquisition is emphasized. (Details of the two types of instruction are on one of the pages of Steve's hand-out.) We need a balance between the two approaches.

Sample discussion problem: Is 1000 square inches of skin enough to be grafted over a body "covered head to toe" with burns? How did you calculate the number of square inches necessary? What other factors need to be included in the discussion?

There was also a page on Steve's hand-out that further discussed the skills vs. problem solving issue, which segues into the topic of mathematical literacy as an issue of economic empowerment. Steve included in the hand-out an article by Alan H. Schoenfeld, "Making Mathematics Work for All Children: Issues of Standards, Testing, and Equity"

Steve compared the long division problem, 1.59 into 10, with the question, "Big Macs cost $1.59. How many can I buy with ten dollars?" Also, how would you explain to a grocery clerk that 1 and 3/4 pounds is not 1.34 pounds? Also, the problem 16*.75^x = 1 was compared with: "You ingest 16 mg of a drug, and you lose 25% of it from your bloodstream every hour. Will you pass the drug test requiring no more than the presence of 1 mg?"

All in all, it was the kind of inspirational talk that we enjoy having gone out of our way for, and I apologize for these scanty notes not doing the talk justice. Thanks, Steve!