NCTM Journals — History and Future

For almost 100 years, NCTM has been a public voice of mathematics education and has provided its members with quality content in its published journals. In view of the technological advances in scholarly communication and the significant shift from print to digital publication of content, NCTM has been assessing the form and delivery of the rich, valuable content of its journals.

This has been a topic of discussion for some time among the Board of Directors. And at their spring meetings, the editorial panels gave some thought to rethinking the content and delivery of what’s currently in Teaching Children Mathematics, Mathematics Teaching in the Middle School, and Mathematics Teacher. 

In July, the NCTM Board of Directors approved a proposal that will consolidate the three practitioner journals into one single journal, with a January 2020 launch of the new journal as a kick-off to NCTM’s centennial year celebration. The new publication will provide more frequent and timely content on topics of relevance to mathematics educators and learners, and the digital version of the journal will embrace the latest technology to promote community engagement, while continuing to deliver the grade-band specific high-quality classroom resource materials that members and readers love. The digital-first philosophy will allow for community discussion and potential engagement with authors. Finally, and perhaps most important, the digital-first philosophy will permit us to publish much more timely content and communicate on the issues of the day—something we were never able to do within the constraints of the production time required for print journals.  

The new single consolidated NCTM journal will include peer-reviewed, grade-band-specific content just like the three existing journals. Although it will have a digital-first orientation, the plan is for a transition period when members could still receive a print publication. In addition to content for all grade bands, there will be commissioned articles and deeper analyses of major issues in mathematics education and education policy in a broader sense. A journal that is primarily digital will also permit us to take advantage of current technologies to include the integration of video and other media tools.

The immediate next phase of this two-year implementation is for a Journal Implementation Task Force to work with staff to obtain reader perspectives on content needs and to formalize the new journal’s editorial structure. This task force includes representation from the NCTM Board of Directors, the Publishing Committee, current journals’ editorial panels, and classroom teachers.

Karen Karp has agreed to chair a Journal Consolidation Task Force, which will meet in early November.  An important first step in the task force’s work is asking members what they want in a new digital journal.  We encourage you to participate in this survey of readers. Your responses will help us as we create an exciting, new publication that will serve all NCTM members.

Matt Larson

NCTM President

Robert Berry

NCTM President-Elect