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Research mathematicians as teacher educators: focusing on mathematics for secondary mathematics teachers

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Abstract

We believe that professional mathematicians who teach undergraduate mathematics courses to prospective teachers play an important role in the education of secondary school mathematics teachers. Thus, we explored the views of research mathematicians on the mathematics that should be taught to prospective mathematics teachers, on how the courses they teach can serve teachers in their work with school students, and on the changes they would implement if their courses were designed specifically for prospective teachers. We constructed profiles of the four mathematicians based on their responses to a clinical interview. We employed the construct of mathematics teacher-educators’ triad in the reflective analysis of our findings and extended the construct based on the results of this study. In conclusion, we commented on potential ways to draw stronger connections between university mathematics and the mathematics taught in schools.

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Notes

  1. We number the interview excerpts for future reference.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mathematics Education, RANGE Center, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel

    Roza Leikin & Michal Meller

  2. Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, Canada

    Rina Zazkis

Authors
  1. Roza Leikin
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  2. Rina Zazkis
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  3. Michal Meller
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Correspondence to Roza Leikin.

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Leikin, R., Zazkis, R. & Meller, M. Research mathematicians as teacher educators: focusing on mathematics for secondary mathematics teachers. J Math Teacher Educ 21, 451–473 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10857-017-9388-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10857-017-9388-9

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