Connecting Mathematics and Mathematics Education

Erich Ch. Wittmann finished his studies of mathematics and physics at the University of Erlangen from 1959 to 1964 and his practical training as a teacher for the gymnasium in 1966 with the Bavarian State Examination and the PhD in mathematics in 1967. After three years in mathematical research at the Dept. of Mathematics/Erlangen he was appointed full professor of mathematics education at the University of Dortmund.  In 1987 he was co-founder of the developmental research project Mathe 2000. His international reputation has been acknowledged by the invitation to a plenary lecture at ICME 9.

• Preface.- Introduction.- 1. Teaching Units as the Integrating Core of Mathematics Education. Educational Studies in   Mathematics 15 (1984), 25–36.- 2. Clinical Interviews Embedded in the „Philosophy of Teaching Units“ – A Means of Developing Teachers’ Attitudes and Skills. In: Christiansen, B. (ed.), Systematic Cooperation Between Theory and Practice in Mathematics Education, Mini-Conference at ICME 5 Adelaide 1984, Copenhagen: Royal Danish School of Education, Dept. of Mathematics 1985, 18–31 .- 3. The mathematical training of teachers from the point of view of education. Survey Lecture at ICME 6. Journal für Mathematik-Didaktik 10 (1989), 291–308.- 4. Mathematics Education as a ‘Design Science’. Educational Studies in Mathematics 29 (1995), 355–374 .- 5. Standard Number Representations in Teaching Arithmetic. Journal für Mathematik-Didaktik 19 (1998), No. 2/3, 149 – 178.- 6. Designing Teaching: The Pythagorean Theorem. In: Cooney, Th. P. (ed.), Mathematics, Pedagogy, and Secondary Teacher Education. Portsmouth, NH: Heineman 1996, 97–165.- 7. Developing mathematics education in a systemic process. Plenary Lecture at ICME 9.     Educational Studies in Mathematics 48 (2002), 1–20.- 8. The Alpha and Omega of Teacher Education: Stimulating Mathematical Activities. In:      Holton, D., Teaching and Learning at University Level. An ICMI Study. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2002, 539 – 552.- 9. Collective Teaching Experiments: Organizing a Systemic Cooperation Between Reflective Researchers and Reflective Teachers in Mathematics Education. In: Nührenbörger, M. et al. (2016). Design Science and Its Importance in the German Mathematics Educational Discussion. (p. 26-34) Rotterdam: Springer .- 10. Operative Proofs in Schoolmathematics and Elementary Mathematics mathematica didactica 37, H. 2 (2014), 213 – 232) (transl. from German).- 11. Structure genetic didactical analyses - empirical research „of the first kind". In:   Błaszczyk, P. & Pieronkiewicz, B. (eds.): Mathematical Transgressions 2015. Kraków: Universitas 2018, 133 – 150.- 12. Understanding and Organizing Mathematics Education as a Design Science – Origins and New Developments. Hiroshima Journal of Mathematics Education vol. 12 (2019), 1– 20.

“Both teachers I interviewed were particularly interested in the examples of teaching units proposed in the book. These teachers’ reactions further confirm the validity of Wittmann’s vision of mathematics education as a design science. … I read their words as a wish to base their educational commitment … . This appears to me the main message of the book and a sensible output of the searching for common ground for mathematics and mathematics education … .” (Fulvia Furinghetti, Educational Studies in Mathematics, Vol. 111 (2), 2022)