ABSTRACT
The Netherlands, together with a group of US middle school teachers, collaborated on the development of the Mathematics in Context (MiC) curriculum. The MiC materials are produced by Encyclopaedia Britannica. MiC was developed as a consequence of the publication of the Curriculum and Evaluation Standards for School Mathematics. For MiC, the process involved is developing a blueprint for a middle school curriculum based on National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Standards, creating an initial version of each student unit, pilot testing the unit in a few classrooms, revising the unit, field-testing the unit with other units, developing a teacher’s guide for each unit, and having the units reviewed by content experts. In the MiC units, the mathematical tasks and questions were situated in contexts designed to stimulate mathematical thinking and promote discussion among students. In contrast to the MiC classes, the conventional class did not study ratio, algebra, or many of the geometric concepts presented in the MiC geometry units.
