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The management plan that we have written is based almost completely on our philosophy of mathematics education. All three of us feel that mathematics education must change and is changing. The old traditional way of teaching math is proving to be ineffective. The idea of a teacher standing in front of thirty students and telling them about algebra or geometry is out of date. The society that we live in today requires its members to be self motivated learners. This means that students must have the ability to learn and discover new ideas for themselves. This reform mathematics that I have described is how we feel that math should be taught to students both now and in the future.

Our plan allows for students to have more freedom in learning that is found in the typical classroom. We feel that students should be able to express their opinions and ideas freely and without harassment of any sort. We want our students to have solid discourse with each other, which allows them to work solutions together, while preparing them to work cooperatively with their peers in their future roles in society. These goals of ours are outlined in the NCTM Principles and Standards for School Mathematics 2000. These standards and Principles that were outlined by NCTM include such topics as communication, problem solving, learning to understand, and equity issues. The topics that I have mentioned require a different kind of management plan than is seen in most mathematics classrooms.

Once you have read our mangement plan, the connections between our goals/ purposes for education and our management plan become quite obvious.

A. We wish to create an interactive learning environment. That means that we want students to share their opinions and ideas with their peers in group work, in the entire class and with their teacher. That was clearly a goal of our management plan which stated that all students would have the freedom to express themselves without fear of harassment.

B. We wish to increase student understanding of mathematics. Again, that goal was written clearly in our management plan with the use of the NCTM Standards and Principles. We said that we would have a reform mathematics environment that would allow students to discover and discuss their mathematical ideas. It has been proven that if a student is allowed to discover a concept on their own, without the teacher telling them how to do it, that they are much more likely to both understand and remember the topic.

C. We want for everyone in the classroom to listen to other people's ideas carefully and take them into considertation when they form their own opinions about mathematical concepts. This goal directly relates back to our first goal which was to create an interactive classroom. If students are willing to share their ideas with the class, then they must also be just as willing to listen carefully to other's. Also, they must be willing to consider those outside opinions when forming their own opinions. This concept weighs heavily on the next goal.

D. We wish for every student to be open-minded to logical reasoning. By that, we mean that we want every student to be willing to change his/her opinion if someone has presented a logical reason as to why they should. Again this directly relates to both goals A and C which create an interactive learning environment and require students to listen carefully to their peers opinions and ideas. All of these goals are clearly addressed in our management plan which requires student interaction and meaningful classroom and group discussion. In order for these to take place, students must listen to others and be willing to change their opinions with respect to logic.

E. We have the desire for students to learn what interests them. Again, this goal relates back to goal B. If a student is learning what is interesting to them, than they are much more likely to understand and remember what it is they have learned. This is clearly outlined in our management plan. In that, we stated that one of our major management goals was to allow students the freedom to learn and understand math in a way that interests them personally.

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