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Supporting Secondary Mathematics Teacher Educators in China: Challenges and Opportunities

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The Learning and Development of Mathematics Teacher Educators

Part of the book series: Research in Mathematics Education ((RME))

Abstract

Mathematics teacher educators (MTEs) play key roles in creating opportunities for classroom teachers learning to teach mathematics. This chapter aims to describe the development of secondary MTEs in China from two perspectives. First, an overall picture of secondary MTEs in China is depicted, including their types, responsibilities, and developmental trajectories. Besides university-based MTEs, there are a large number of mathematics teaching researchers (MTRs) and school-based mathematics mentor teachers who give practical guidance mainly to in-service mathematics teachers. Secondly, a special focus is given to university-based secondary MTEs by surveying the challenges they experience as MTEs and strategic responses to these challenges. This chapter concludes with discussions on and implications of the results as well as opportunities for the development of MTEs in China and beyond.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Backbone teachers are recognized and developed by the government, considered to be better than average teachers in professional qualification, and supposed to act as a model and to play an important role in promoting collective improvements on teaching quality of the district they belong to.

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Correspondence to Jinfa Cai .

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Wu, Y., Cai, J. (2021). Supporting Secondary Mathematics Teacher Educators in China: Challenges and Opportunities. In: Goos, M., Beswick, K. (eds) The Learning and Development of Mathematics Teacher Educators. Research in Mathematics Education. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-62408-8_17

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-62408-8_17

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