Bachelor of Arts in Education in Mathematics - Secondary Education

Western Washington University - International Study Center (StudyGroup)

Mathematics reveals hidden patterns that help us understand the world around us. Now much more than arithmetic and geometry, mathematics today is a diverse discipline that deals with data, measurements, and observations from science with inference, deduction, and proof and with mathematical models of natural phenomena, of human behavior, and of social systems. As a practical matter, Mathematics is a science of pattern and order. Its domain is not molecules or cells, but numbers, chance, form, algorithms, and change. As a science of abstract objects, Mathematics relies on logic rather than on observation as its standard of truth, yet employs observation, simulation, and even experimentation as means of discovering truth.'' From: Everybody Counts: A Report to the Nation on the Future of Mathematics Education (c) 1989 National Academy of Sciences.Teaching Mathematics is a challenge, a responsibility, and an opportunity. Learning to teach Mathematics occurs through a variety of means: the study of a wide variety of Mathematics, pedagogical preparation within a mathematical context, formal clinical preparation in education, an extended internship, and continual experiences as a student, learner, and problem solver in Mathematics.