The ICMI Felix Klein and Hans Freudenthal medals for 2003
The International Commission on Mathematical Instruction (ICMI),
founded in Rome in 1908, has, for the first time in its history,
established prizes recognizing outstanding achievement in mathematics
education research. The Felix Klein Medal, named for the first
president of ICMI (1908-1920), honors a lifetime achievement. The
Hans Freudenthal Medal, named for the eight president of ICMI
(1967-1970), recognizes a major cumulative program of research.
These awards are to be made in each odd numbered year, with
presentation of the medals, and invited addresses by the medalists at
the following International Congress on Mathematical Education
(ICME).
These awards, which pay tribute to outstanding scholarship in
mathematics education, serve not only to encourage the efforts of
others, but also to contribute to the development, through the public
recognition of exemplars, of high standards for the field. The
awards represent the judgment of an (anonymous) jury of distinguished
scholars of international stature, chaired by Prof. Michèle Artigue
of the University Paris 7.
ICMI is proud to announce the first awardees of the Klein and
Freudenthal Medals.
The Felix Klein Medal for 2003 is awarded to Guy Brousseau, Professor
Emeritus of the University Institute for Teacher Education of
Aquitaine in Bordeaux, for his lifetime development of the theory of
didactic situations, and its applications to the teaching and
learning of mathematics.
The Hans Freudenthal Medal for 2003 is awarded to Celia Hoyles,
Professor at the Institute of Education of the University of London,
for her seminal research on instructional uses of technology in
mathematics education.
Citations of the work of these medalists can be found below.
Presentation of the medals, and invited addresses of the medalists,
will occur at ICME-10 in Copenhagen, July 4-11, 2004.
Citation for the 2003 ICMI Felix Klein Medal to Guy Brousseau
The first Felix Klein Award of the Internal Commission on
Mathematical Instruction (ICMI) is awarded to Professor Guy
Brousseau. This distinction recognises the essential contribution Guy
Brousseau has given to the development of mathematics education as a
scientific field of research, through his theoretical and
experimental work over four decades, and to the sustained effort he
has made throughout his professional life to apply the fruits of his
research to the mathematics education of both students and teachers.
Born in 1933, Guy Brousseau began his career as an elementary teacher
in 1953. In the late sixties, after graduating in mathematics, he
entered the University of Bordeaux. In 1986 he earned a 'doctorat
d'état,' and in 1991 became a full professor at the newly created
University Institute for Teacher Education (IUFM) in Bordeaux, where
he worked until 1998. He is now Professor Emeritus at the IUFM of
Aquitaine. He is also Doctor Honoris Causa of the University of
Montréal.
From the early seventies, Guy Brousseau emerged as one of the leading
and most original researchers in the new field of mathematics
education, convinced on the one hand that this field must be
developed as a genuine field of research, with both fundamental and
applied dimensions, and on the other hand that it must remain close
to the discipline of mathematics. His notable theoretical achievement
was the elaboration of the theory of didactic situations, a theory he
initiated in the early seventies, and which he has continued to
develop with unfailing energy and creativity. At a time when the
dominant vision was cognitive, strongly influenced by the Piagetian
epistemology, he stressed that what the field needed for its
development was not a purely cognitive theory but one allowing us
also to understand the social interactions between students, teachers
and knowledge that take place in the classroom and condition what is
learned by students and how it can be learned. This is the aim of the
theory of didactic situations, which has progressively matured,
becoming the impressive and complex theory that it is today. To be
sure, this was a collective work, but each time there were
substantial advances, the critical source was Guy Brousseau.
This theory, visionary in its integration of epistemological,
cognitive and social dimensions, has been a constant source of
inspiration for many researchers throughout the world. Its main
constructs, such as the concepts of adidactic and didactic
situations, of didactic contract, of devolution and
institutionalization have been made widely accessible through the
translation of Guy Brousseau's principal texts into many different
languages and, more recently, the publication by Kluwer in 1997 of
the book, 'Theory of didactical situations in mathematics -
1970-1990'.
Although the research Guy Brousseau has inspired currently embraces
the entire range of mathematics education from elementary to
post-secondary, his major contributions deal with the elementary
level, where they cover all mathematical domains from numbers and
geometry to probability. Their production owes much to a specific
structure - the COREM (Center for Observation and Research in
Mathematics Education) - that he created in 1972 and directed until
1997. COREM provided an original organisation of the relationships
between theoretical and experimental work.
Guy Brousseau is not only an exceptional and inspired researcher in
the field, he is also a scholar who has dedicated his life to
mathematics education, tirelessly supporting the development of the
field, not only in France but in many countries, supporting new
doctoral programs, helping and supervising young international
researchers (he supervised more than 50 doctoral theses),
contributing in a vital way to the development of mathematical and
didactic knowledge of students and teachers. He has been until the
nineties intensely involved in the activities of the CIEAEM
(Commission Internationale pour l'Etude et l'Amélioration de
l'Enseignement des Mathématiques) and he was its secretary from 1981
to 1984. At a national level, he was deeply involved in the
experience of the IREMs (Research Institutes in Mathematics
Education), from their foundation in the late sixties. He had a
decisive influence on the activities and resources these institutes
have developed for promoting high quality mathematics training of
elementary teachers for more than 30 years.
Citation for the 2003 ICMI Freudenthal Medal to Celia Hoyles
The first Hans Freudenthal Award of the International Commission on
Mathematical Instruction (ICMI) is awarded to Professor Celia Hoyles.
This distinction recognises the outstanding contribution that Celia
Hoyles has made to research in the domain of technology and
mathematics education, both in terms of theoretical advances and
through the development and piloting of national and international
projects in this field, aimed at improving through technology the
mathematics education of the general population, from young children
to adults in the workplace.
Celia Hoyles studied mathematics at the University of Manchester,
winning the Dalton prize for the best first-class degree in
Mathematics. She began her career as a secondary teacher, and then
became a lecturer at the Polytechnic of North London. She entered the
field of mathematics education research, earning a Masters and
Doctorate, and became Professor of Mathematics Education at the
Institute of Education, University of London in 1984.
Her early research in the area of technology and mathematics
education, like that of many researchers, began by exploring the
potential offered by Logo, and she soon became an international
leader in this area. Two books published in 1986 and 1992 (edited)
attested to the productivity of her research with Logo. This was
followed, in 1996, by the publication of Windows on Mathematical
Meanings: Learning Cultures and Computers, co-authored with Richard
Noss, which inspired major theoretical advances in the field, such as
the notions of webbing and situated abstraction, ideas that are well
known to researchers irrespective of the specific technologies they
are studying.
From the mid nineties, her research on technology integrated the new
possibilities offered by information and communication technologies
as well as the new relationships children develop with technology.
She has recently co-directed successively two projects funded by the
European Union: the Playground project in which children from
different countries designed, built and shared their own video games,
and the current WebLabs project, which aims at designing and
evaluating virtual laboratories where children in different countries
build and explore mathematical and scientific ideas collaboratively
at a distance. As an international leader in the area of technology
and mathematics education, she was recently appointed by the ICMI
Executive Committee as co-chair of a new ICMI Study on this theme.
However, Celia Hoyles' contribution to research in mathematics
education is considerably broader than this focus on technology.
Since the mid nineties, she has been involved in two further major
areas of research. The first, a series of studies on children's
understanding of proof, has pioneered some novel methodological
strategies linking quantitative and qualitative approaches that
include longitudinal analyses of development. The second area has
involved researching the mathematics used at work and she now
co-directs a new project, Techno-Mathematical Literacies in the
Workplace, which aims to develop this research by implementing and
evaluating some theoretically-designed workplace training using a
range of new media.
In recent years Celia Hoyles has become increasingly involved in
working alongside mathematicians and teachers in policy-making. She
was elected Chair of the Joint Mathematical Council of the U.K. in
October 1999 and she is a member of the Advisory Committee on
Mathematics Education (ACME) that speaks for the whole of the
mathematics community to the Government on policy matters related to
mathematics, from primary to higher education. In 2002, she played a
major role in ACME's first report to the Government on the Continuing
Professional Development of Teachers of Mathematics, and contributed
to the comprehensive review of 14-19 mathematics in the UK. In
recognition of her contributions, Celia has recently been awarded the
Order of the British Empire for "Services to Mathematics Education".
Celia Hoyles belongs to that special breed of mathematics educators
who, even while engaging with theoretical questions, do not lose
sight of practice; and reciprocally, while engaged in advancing
practice, do not forget the lessons they have learned from theory and
from empirical research. Celia Hoyles' commitment to the improvement
of mathematics education, in her country and beyond, can be felt in
every detail of her multi-faceted, diverse professional activity.
Her enthusiasm and vision are universally admired by those who have
been in direct contact with her. It is thanks to people like Celia
Hoyles, with a clear sense of mission and the ability to build
bridges between research and practice while contributing to both,
that the community of mathematics education has acquired, over the
years, a better-defined identity.
Bernard R. Hodgson
Secretary-General of ICMI
