[Maths-Education] 21st century maths conference

[Bakker, A. (Arthur)]

Hi all,

I would like to draw your attention to a conference on 21st century maths. The key question is: “What should students learn about maths in the 21st Century?”
What is interesting is that it is not organised by mathematics educators, but Charles Fadel, who wrote the 21st century skills book, of the Center for Curriculum Redesign in collaboration with OECD and the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise. See for information: http://eventus.trippus.se/21stcenturymaths
Among the sponsors is the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. I think it is important that maths educators stay involved in such initiatives outside our discipline.

Arthur Bakker

Purpose of the conference:
What should students learn in the 21st century? This conference will discuss top-level changes in the Math school curriculum, in terms of what topics and branches should be added, and just as crucially, what should be removed.

Rationale:
In the 21st century, humanity is facing severe difficulties at the societal (global warming, financial stresses), economic (globalization, innovation) and personal levels (employability, happiness). Technology’s exponential growth is rapidly compounding the problems via automation and off-shoring, which are producing social disruptions.  Education is falling behind the curve[1], as it did during the Industrial Revolution.  The last profound changes to curriculum[2] were effected in the late 1800’s as a response to the sudden growth in societal and human capital needs.  As the world of the 21st century bears little resemblance to that of the 19th century, education curricula are overdue for a major redesign.
This is all the more true in Science/Technology/Engineering/Math (STEM), where demand is outpacing supply worldwide.  Math being the foundation of STEM, and in turn innovation, the situation requires urgent attention.  Beyond STEM professions, we are seeing very significant innumeracy in a very large segment of the population, which has severe consequences on the ability to understand the world’s difficulties.