Report to the Fellows
from the ISDDE Executive and its Chair, July 2008
This report follows a meeting of the Executive at the ISDDE08 Conference in Egmond aan zee, the Netherlands. It outlines the main activities of the Society in the past year, those who have led them, and some of the plans for the future.
The Conferences:
These conferences are a major activity of the Society, giving members an opportunity to share the experiences and challenges of educational design and development within the educational and social structures of their various countries.
Egmond 08
Peter Boon and the Freudenthal Institute team produced an excellent conference around the theme:
Linking design research to professional educational design.
Each day was launched by plenary speakers: Alan Schoenfeld, Paul Black, Koeno Gravemeijer and Jan de Lange. Much of the rest of the time was in working groups, relating the theme to four areas of design: curriculum, assessment, professional development, and software Our thanks are due to the organisers.
Cairns 09
The 2009 conference will be in the North Queensland resort of Cairns from the evening of Monday September 28 to October 1. The conference will be organised by Kaye Stacey and her colleagues, at the University of Melbourne and elsewhere in Australia. Will Morony, Executive Officer of the Australian Association of Mathematics Teachers, spoke in Egmond, invited suggestions on the programme and outlined the practicalities (see the flyer attached).
Future conferences
Current thinking is that the 2010 Conference will be in England, the 2011 conference on the East Coast of the US.
The ISDDE Prize:
is “for excellence in design for education in science or mathematics”. The 2008 prize, of US$10,000, was to be awarded “for a specific product, or coherent set of products”. The panel of judges was chaired by Phil Daro, Vice Chair of ISDDE, who created the prize. Their overriding criterion was “excellence as recognized by a wide range of designers and users”. In the outcome, the judges decided on this first occasion to award two prizes of US$10,000.
They were awarded to:
| Glenda Lappan and Elizabeth Phillips | for Connected Mathematics and, in particular, the two units Variables and Patterns and Say It With Symbols. |
|---|---|
| Malcolm Swan | for The Language of Functions and Graphs |
See the full citation for more details.
The 2009 Prize will be awarded for “a substantial body of work over a period of years”.
Educational Designer:
The e-journal has made substantial progress. The first issue is complete, with major contributions by Paul Black, Chris Schunn and Malcolm Swan. These authors are working with the editors to explore how best to make use of the opportunities offered by the development of the website in communicating their work. The further contributions that have been promised would fill the next four or five issues. (for information and invitations to contribute see www.educationaldesigner.com)
Susan McKenney, the Editor, is currently on extended maternity leave. In the meantime, while keeping her in touch, I am acting as Editor, working with Daniel Pead on planning and the design of the website. Expect a launch announcement later in the Summer.
Hugh Burkhardt, Chair, ISDDE, July 2008