by the ON-Math Editorial Panel
ON-Math, the newest NCTM peer-reviewed journal, is committed to providing members with interesting and relevant articles that take advantage of electronic media. The Editorial Panel of ON-Math encourages teachers, teacher educators, and students to submit manuscripts. The Editorial Panel is interested in articles that—
- enhance the understanding of mathematics;
- reflect a vision of teaching and learning mathematics appropriate for the twenty-first century;
- capitalize on the opportunities that the electronic media affords;
- are useful to teachers and teacher educators in their classrooms;
- address a range of issues associated with equity and diversity in mathematics education that are compatible with NCTM's "mathematics for all" statement;
- reflect interdisciplinary approaches to learning mathematics;
- explicitly relate to NCTM’s Principles and Standards for School Mathematics;
- address student assessment, teacher preparation, or best practices in classroom instruction; and
- presented in a concise, non-linear, web-based format.
The submission guidelines and document preparation pages give logistics for submitting a manuscript. The following are some ideas that illustrate the spectrum of manuscripts that we welcome.
Departments
Linking Research to Practice
This department highlights research and the ways in which it can be applied to mathematics classrooms in elementary school, middle school, high school, and college. Authors are encouraged to submit manuscripts in which they summarize findings from research and provide classroom examples relevant to teachers. Other examples include, (a) focusing on specific technologically-based mathematical tasks from research (b) using videoclips to illustrate questioning strategies that were used by a researcher to probe student thinking (c) highlighting technological resources and describing how they are related to research. To submit a manuscript to this department, submit your work throught our electronic process.
ON-Illuminations
Have you had success using an Illuminations activity or lesson? Do you have advice for teachers or teacher educators about how best to incorporate Illuminations technology into mathematics classrooms? Consider a submission that includes a written, video and/or audio description of actual classroom use of an Illuminations lesson or activity in practice.
ON-Illumination’s purpose is to promote connections to and classroom examples of the effective use of the activities and lessons maintained within Illuminations.
The Editorial Panel will select for publication submissions that address effective and strategic uses of Illuminations resources in action. Manuscripts should be sent to onmath@nctm.org with the subject line beginning with “Illuminations”; the body of the email must identify the sender and include affiliation and contact information.
Once a connection to an Illuminations activity or lesson is published, we encourage readers to submit responses, comments, and reports of classroom use. Responses must include the author’s name, email address and any affiliation (email addresses will not be shown). We will encourage a wide variety of feedback, but make no guarantee to post any particular comment.
ON-Point
ON-Point’s purpose is to promote discussion about current issues regarding technology in math education.
Do you have an opinion about how a particular technology should or should not be used? Do you have advice for curriculum leaders or policy makers about how best to incorporate technology into our mathematics classrooms? Does your district or school have technology policies or practices in place that you’ve found to be particularly helpful – or detrimental – to student achievement and/or motivation? Consider writing an opinion column, of no more than about 500 words, to express your view.
The Editorial Panel will select for publication submissions that address important current topics and contribute to constructive discussion and debate; they should be well written and cogently argued. Published submissions reflect the opinions of the authors only, and not necessarily of their affiliated school or institution, of the ON-Math Editorial Panel, or of the NCTM. Opinions should be sent to onmath@nctm.org with the subject line beginning with “Opinion:”; the body of the email must identify the sender and include affiliation and contact information.
Once an opinion column is published, we encourage readers to submit responses. We particularly encourage responses that are direct, express a clear point of view, and contribute to constructive discussion and debate. Responses must include the author’s name, email address and any affiliation (email addresses will not be shown). We will encourage a wide variety of responses, but make no guarantee to post any particular response.
Video
Streaming video can be used in a variety of ways to enhance articles. For example, you might use a clip of students actively engaged in an investigation, project, or task that the article describes. Readers would view the clip to help them understand how to implement the activity in their classrooms. A second example would be an article on teacher preparation that discusses specific teaching strategies and includes a video of a teacher employing the strategies. Video allows authors to feature their best lesson, one that has evolved over time into a "fantastic" lesson and has even the most recalcitrant students talking when they leave the classroom.
Authors may use video clips to illustrate how manipulatives, multimedia, and technology can make mathematics a hands-on, interactive, real-life experience. Video clips can also feature using technology to promote achievement in mathematics for special needs students.
When including video in a manuscript, authors should adhere to the following guidelines:
- The clip should clearly support the content of the article.
- The video should be of interest to the viewer.
- The clip should be less than three minutes in length.
Applets
The Editorial Panel encourages articles featuring the use of applets that enhance student understanding. Important pedagogical considerations regarding each applet are its interactive abilities, ease of use, robustness under use, and attractiveness in a learning environment. Remember that the article must focus on the learning of mathematics; the applet should be only a part of the full article. Many previous ON-Math articles contain good examples of the use of applets.
We encourage authors to use the many public-domain interactive applets that are currently available. Sources include the following:
Multimedia Presentations
Using multimedia tools to make available student or teacher presentations is another capability of ON-Math. For example, students could photograph objects that mimic the graphs of particular functions, then use technology to fit the graphs of functions to those pictures. Such “objects” could be the stream of water from a fountain or the motion of a point on a bicycle tire as it rolls along. The use of photographs of real-world patterns or geometric shapes could also be the focus of an article.
An author might investigate the mathematics in music through a multimedia presentation. For example, assigning notes to the rings in the Tower of Hanoi could create a sequence of tones that records the moves necessary to solve the problem.
Graphing Calculator, Mathematics and Dynamic Modeling Software
Articles in print journals about the use of graphing calculator, mathematics, and dynamic modeling software usually are accompanied by static screen shots. ON-Math’s online nature means that illustrating articles with dynamic calculator and computer applications is now possible. Examples include articles based on the following:
- Approximating the circumference and area of a circle by using inscribed and circumscribed polygons
- Approximating the graphs of functions by Taylor polynomials of a variety of degrees
- Generating Pythagorean Triples
- Conducting probability simulations involving spinners, dice, playing cards, the Monte Carlo method, and so on
- Demonstrating the difference between two groups. Statistical software could be used to analyze data that students in a class input
- Using downloadable calculator programs to investigate algebraic relationships
Exciting New Media
Electronic journals have opened a wealth of new methods for presenting information to a target audience. The Editorial Panel of ON-Math hopes that authors will be as excited about exercising their creativity in writing new articles as we are about presenting those articles to the members of NCTM. If you have any questions or ideas, please email the journal staff at onmath@nctm.org.
