A volume in the series The Montana Mathematics Enthusiast: Monograph Series in Mathematics Education. Series Editor: Bharath Sriraman, The University of Montana The teaching and learning of mathematics in Alberta - one of three Canadian provinces sharing a border with Montana - has a long and storied history. An integral part of the past 50 years (1962- 2012) of this history has been delta-K: Journal of the Mathematics Council of the Alberta Teachers' Association. This volume, which presents ten memorable articles from each of the past five decades, that is, 50 articles from the past 50 years of the journal, provides an opportunity to share this rich history with a wide range of individuals interested in the teaching and learning of mathematics and mathematics education. Each decade begins with an introduction, providing a historical context, and concludes with a commentary from a prominent member of the Alberta mathematics education community. As a result, this monograph provides a historical account as well as a contemporary view of many of the trends and issues in the teaching and learning of mathematics. This volume is meant to serve as a resource for a variety of individuals, including teachers of mathematics, mathematics teacher educators, mathematics education researchers, historians, and undergraduate and graduate students. Most importantly, this volume is a celebratory retrospective on the work of the Mathematics Council of the Alberta Teachers' Association.

A volume in the series The Montana Mathematics Enthusiast: Monograph Series in Mathematics Education. Series Editor: Bharath Sriraman, The University of Montana The teaching and learning of mathematics in Alberta - one of three Canadian provinces sharing a border with Montana - has a long and storied history. An integral part of the past 50 years (1962- 2012) of this history has been delta-K: Journal of the Mathematics Council of the Alberta Teachers' Association. This volume, which presents ten memorable articles from each of the past five decades, that is, 50 articles from the past 50 years of the journal, provides an opportunity to share this rich history with a wide range of individuals interested in the teaching and learning of mathematics and mathematics education. Each decade begins with an introduction, providing a historical context, and concludes with a commentary from a prominent member of the Alberta mathematics education community. As a result, this monograph provides a historical account as well as a contemporary view of many of the trends and issues in the teaching and learning of mathematics. This volume is meant to serve as a resource for a variety of individuals, including teachers of mathematics, mathematics teacher educators, mathematics education researchers, historians, and undergraduate and graduate students. Most importantly, this volume is a celebratory retrospective on the work of the Mathematics Council of the Alberta Teachers' Association.

Mathematics is often viewed as a set of invariant prepositions, theorems, and axioms. However, from a historical perspective, these mathematical objects and results have evolved and are contingent on cultural developments within society. Studies of teacher learning suggest that teachers tend to make sense of new ideas through existing views of the nature of mathematics: in this way, images of the nature of mathematics impact pedagogy. In this book I investigate the experiences of four elementary teachers as they engaged in a professional development project concerned with designing a series of mathematics lessons where historical stories were used as instructional tools. Working with three emerging metaphoric themes, I consider how images of the nature of mathematics can be altered through immersion in the uncertainty and indeterminacy of historical mathematical stories. By creating with the teachers a parable that presents mathematics as a vibrant and creative activity, the predominant view many elementary teachers have of mathematics as isolated facts and procedures that must be memorized is challenged.