NCCTM_Mandy Walker Jennings

In looking for a professional organization, I decided to look for one that would be close to home in my field of mathematics. I searched for and found the website for the North Carolina Council of Teachers of Mathematics. (NCCTM- http://secure.ncctm.org/index.cfm) I have attended a conference for the western region of the NCCTM organization and found that it was a really interesting experience. We walked out of the conference with an armload of information (papers and tools) to be used in our future classrooms.

 

The website for this organization was extensive. It container information for grants that teachers can apply for, a conference schedule, links to other mathematics organizations, information for math contests, and the current scores for math exams. I was actually surprised; the math results for 2008 were already posted. They seem to take this information very seriously and want to make the public aware of current achievements. However, it was what I did not find that really surprised me. I did not see a resources page. Most of the websites that I have visited concerning education will have some sort of a resource page. They have activities, worksheets, and ideas that other teachers have suggested have worked in their classroom. It is the resources page that many teachers need, especially a new teacher who is still building their arsenal of teaching tools. While the workshop that I attended was great, the website wasn’t.

 

Considering this information, it would be interesting to see what information is contained in the journal published by the NCCTM- The Centroid. While I could tell that the NCCTM published a journal from their website, I could not even see a sample of what it looks like. In order to get to the web page for The Centroid, you have to be a member of NCCTM. Membership is not unreasonable- $20/year and $50/3 years with a student membership of $10/year- but it is not something that I would sign up for just to see what the journal looks like. I must say, I attended the conference last year without a membership. I am not sure if that was a fluke on the part of the person that signed me up, but I didn’t know and they didn’t ask. I guess there is a possibility that the conference was free for students. (? – there was no mention of fees for conferences on the website) I would not rate this website as very well. It really didn’t have that much information that I would have considered helpful.