The NCTM journal Mathematics Teacher Learning & Teaching has issued a special call for manuscripts for the Build It! edition. Submission deadline is Feb. 1, 2023, and it will be published in October 2023. CSMCE Director Wendy Smith and Associate Director Lindsay Augustyn are willing to help you craft your idea into a manuscript! Email us at nebraskamath@unl.edu to get started!
Here, we share the blueprint for the 2023 MTLT Special Issue from NCTM. Students of all ages benefit from building — from stacking cubes and designing bridges to exploring geometric constructions. Build It! activities have an important mathematical goal and an openness that engages students in creating their own representations, visualizations, or explanations. When students have opportunities to create representations or prove something is true, they develop agency (“I can figure this out!”) and that contributes to a positive mathematics identity (“I can do math!”). Building begins with teachers designing and adapting tasks that provide an opportunity for students to build.
We are seeking your best Build It! tasks in order to ‘construct’ a unique Special Issue — one that is full of engaging tasks that invite students to create, reason, discuss, and connect with the mathematical ideas they are learning. Manuscripts will be brief (limit 1,500 words, including references) and provide insights to see the thinking behind the task, as well as the impact of the task. Key elements of a manuscript may include: sharing the task (key features), how you have implemented the task (guidance on introducing and question posing), and/or illustrations of how students have engaged with the task (student work, pictures, dialogue).
Download the entire PDF of prompts.