Proceedings of the 1984 Annual Meeting of the Canadian Mathematics Education Study Group (8th, Waterloo, Ontario, June 2-6, 1984)

Papers from the eighth annual meeting of the Canadian Mathematics Education Study Group are presented, beginning with a lecture by Alan Bishop on "The Social Construction of Meaning--A Significant Development for Mathematics Education." Also included are reports of four working groups: "LOGO and the Mathematics Curriculum" (Dale Burnett and William Higginson); "The Impact of Research and Technology on School Algebra Curricula" (Carolyn Kieran and Thomas Kieren); "Epistemology and Mathematics" (Maurice Belanger and David Wheeler); and "Visual Thinking in Mathematics" (Tony Thompson and John Mason). A panel of speakers (David Alexander, Michael Silbert, Dale Drost, and Claude Gaulin) discussed the general trends of current curriculum reforms in school systems in three Canadian provinces. The discussion of a second panel (Peter Taylor, John Poland, and Keith Geddes) on the impact of computers on undergraduate mathematics is briefly summarized. Subjects included conclusions of a report based on earlier Study Group discussions, a college's commitment to the use of computers in first-year courses, and the use of software for the exact manipulation of matrices and functions. A digest of a paper by George Davis, "A Microcomputer for Every Student," is appended. Also included are accounts of two courses with a historical flavor: "Famous Problems in Mathematics: An Outline of a Course" by Israel Kleiner and "Intellectual Respectability--A Historical Approach" by Abe Schenitzer. A list of participants concludes the document. (MNS)