Celebrating the 100th anniversary of ICMI, a symposium will be held in Rome under the title: “The First Century of the International Commission on Mathematical Instruction (1908-2008) Reflecting and Shaping the World of Mathematics Education”. This symposium is addressed to a selected group of participants, including many of the “big” names in our field. The International Programme Committee is chaired by Ferdinando Arzarello (Italy), and also includes names like Michèle Artigue, Hyman Bass, Jo Boaler, Fulvia Furinghetti, Jeremy Kilpatrik, Mogens Niss and Gert Schubring, to mention some.

A core component of the program of the symposium is five work groups, where several of the participants have posted interesting articles for download. The themes of the working groups are:

• WG1 – Disciplinary mathematics and school mathematics
• WG2 – The professional formation of teachers
• WG3 – Mathematics education and society
• WG4 – Resources and technology throughout the history of ICMI
• WG5 – Mathematics education: an ICMI perspective

The symposium also includes nine plenary sessions:

• PL0: Moments of the life of ICMI [Opening Plenary]
• PL1: The development of mathematics education as an academic field
• PL2: Intuition and rigor in mathematics education
• PL3: Perspectives on the balance between application & modelling and ‘pure’ mathematics in the teaching and learning of mathematics
• PL4: The relationship between research and practice in mathematics education: international examples of good practice
• PL5: The origins and early incarnations of ICMI
• PL6: ICMI Renaissance: the emergence of new issues in mathematics education
• PL7: Centres and peripheries in mathematics education
• PL8 (Closing Plenary): ICMI: One century at the interface between mathematics and mathematics education – Reflections and perspectives
  

The conference starts tomorrow, and it is closing on Saturday. So if you don’t have the opportunity to be there, take a look at the webpage! There are lots of interesting material there.