The purpose of the project is to design, implement, evaluate, and disseminate a mathematics curriculum sequence for middle school students expressly designed to introduce them to the notions and arts of mathematical thinking and to develop foundational skills of mathematical inquiry. This will be accomplished partly through a laboratory presentation centered on mathematical design activities that span a rich variety of compelling projects, and partly through the use of intelligent tools designed to support and guide constructive exploration and design tasks. The sequence will comprise modules in the areas of algebra, elementary functional analysis, and mathematical modeling. The mathematical content will be developed to support the needs and goals of the inquiry activities. Three major types of tools will be developed, corresponding to qualitatively different ways of embedding intelligent support for open-ended inquiry activities. This work builds on a pilot project which led to the development of prototypes of these tools and their successful classroom trial in an introductory algebra course. The goal of the present project is to extend and deepen the approach and to establish it as a national model for future mathematical curricula.
