On February 12-14, 2015, AMTE hosted our Nineteenth AMTE Conference in Orlando, FL. At this conference, attended by 630 people, there were many outstanding speakers and numerous opportunities for those attending to meet and share ideas with each other. Food was served often and the meals provided time to discuss issues and meet some new colleagues.
Beginning at 9:00 a.m. on Thursday and ending Saturday morning, 197 concurrent sessions were held. We welcomed Margaret (Peg) Smith, University of Pittsburgh, as the speaker at the Thursday General Session. She reflected on her term as the first editor of the Mathematics Teacher Educator in her presentation titled, "Building a Professional Knowledge Base for Mathematics Teacher Education: Reflections on the First Three Years of Mathematics Teacher Educator." This year’s Judith E. Jacobs Lecture was given by Nadine Bezuk, San Diego State University. During her presentation, "Supporting Elementary Teachers in Developing their Mathematics Teaching," Nadine challenged the audience, as individuals and as an organization, to find ways to provide more support to elementary teachers.
During the conference, materials and information of interest to members were available from Casio, ETA hand2mind, Heinemann, Information Age Publishing, The Math Learning Center, National Council of Supervisors of Mathematics (NCSM), National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM), Pearson, Priority Education Solutions, and TODOS: Mathematics For All. We thank each of these groups for contributing to the success of this conference.
During a Thursday evening reception, more than 100 graduate students and early career faculty attending the conference had an opportunity to meet each other and AMTE leaders. Thank you to Casio, ETA hand2mind, and Information Age Publishing for supporting the reception.
On Friday morning, the Advocacy Breakfast was led by Ken Krehbiel, National Council of Teachers of Mathematics; Sharon Robinson, American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education; and Karen King, National Science Foundation. The panel members talked about how they approach advocacy in various contexts and responded to questions from the audience.
At the Business Meeting on Saturday members were encouraged to make plans to attend the Twentieth AMTE Conference, which will be held at Hotel Irvine in Irvine, CA on January 28-30, 2016. Please see the announcement about the Call for Proposals on the AMTE website.
Thanks to all who attended this year’s conference and to all of those who helped deliver the conference. A special thank you goes to Erhan Selcuk Haciomeroglu, University of Central Florida, Enrique Ortiz, University of Central Florida, their colleagues, and their doctoral students for the tremendous support at registration and with technology.
See you in January 2016!
Susan Gay, Conference Director
