The Dialectic Relationship between Research and Practice in Mathematics Teacher Education

This paper addresses issues linking research in student teacher learning with reflection on practice in mathematics teacher education. From a situated perspective on learning and practice, we explore our own practice as teacher educators while researching student teacher learning in our classrooms. We describe a study on student teacher learning, considering student teacher learning as a “process of becoming”, and how the results of this research have affected our development as mathematics teacher educators and members of a community of inquiry. Our work shows how in the mathematics teacher education context the relationship between theory and practice becomes an element of both teacher educator and researcher development.     

The Dialectic Relationship between Research and Practice in Mathematics Teacher Education

This paper addresses issues linking research in student teacher learning with reflection on practice in mathematics teacher education. From a situated perspective on learning and practice, we explore our own practice as teacher educators while researching student teacher learning in our classrooms. We describe a study on student teacher learning, considering student teacher learning as a “process of becoming”, and how the results of this research have affected our development as mathematics teacher educators and members of a community of inquiry. Our work shows how in the mathematics teacher education context the relationship between theory and practice becomes an element of both teacher educator and researcher development.     

Exploring the Radical Middle between Theory and Practice: A collaborative self-study of beginning teacher educators

This article is a collaborative self-study of our development as beginning teacher educators over the course of an academic year. A focus of our self-study was our shared interest in the role of theory and of practice in teacher education programs. Theodore taught a philosophy of education course and Shawn taught a practicum supervision course. Both authors share autobiographical excerpts of their teaching contexts and the problems of practice that they encountered. Our analysis suggests that the dichotomy between theory and practice is unhelpful and unproductive for both teacher candidates and teacher educators. Theory and practice are densely interwoven aspects of teaching that can be tacitly separated by coursework in teacher education. We advocate a pedagogy of teacher education that explores the radical middle between theory and practice.     

Mathematics professional development for elementary teachers: Building trust within a school-based mathematics education community

Despite increased attention in professional development to building communities of teachers, few studies have investigated the development of trust in these communities. This paper presents issues related to trust in a professional development project at an elementary school. The project aimed for school-based elementary teachers and university-based mathematics educators to work together to improve mathematics instruction at the school by developing a mathematics education community of learners, where learners were conceived of as both the teachers and the mathematics educators. This paper addresses the following question: What factors in the project supported the development of trust among mathematics educators and teachers as the community was formed? More specifically, the paper is about one aspect of trust, namely, building school-based elementary teachers’ trust in the university-based mathematics educators. We point to three factors that helped the development of trust and we use care theory to further understand and discuss these factors in the context of in-service teacher education initiatives.     

Professional Development of Mathematics Teacher Educators: Growth Through Practice

In this paper we present a study conductedwithin the framework of an in-serviceprofessional development program for junior andsenior high school mathematics teachers. Thefocus of the study is the analysis of processesencountered by the staff members, as members ofa community of practice, which contributed totheir growth as teacher educators. We offer athree-layer model of growth through practice asa conceptual framework to think about becominga mathematics teacher educator, and illustratehow our suggested model can be adapted to thecomplexities and commonalities of theunderlying processes of professionaldevelopment of mathematics teacher educators.     

Writing Workshops in Teacher Education: Making a space for feeling and diversity

Telling and writing personal stories is a powerful means of fostering teachers' professional growth. However, little attention has been paid to the professional and personal growth of teacher educators/researchers who engage with students and research participants in personal storytelling and autobiographical writing. This article explores the contribution of writing to the development of personal narratives of practice among teacher educators/researchers, and considers the potential of the writing workshop as a space where diverse voices can find expression. Drawing on phenomenological and narrative methods, we examine work with both pre-service and experienced teachers, describing the ways that space was created for a 'dialogue within difference' where participants could express themselves fully. The main questions addressed are: how does personal writing enable teacher educators to understand the experience of students; how do we as teacher educators/researchers learn about ourselves through the mirror of our students' writing and our response to it; and how do the institutional contexts of university and college affect the processes by which stories are told, reflected on and re-storied?     

Revisiting Reflection: Utilizing Third Spaces in Teacher Education

Much has been written about the importance of reflective practice. What is missing is reflective work on the part of teacher educators to address the mismatch between university-based methods courses and the realities of classroom life. With examples from a third grade mathematics classroom as well as a university-based mathematics methods course, this article explores ways educators can employ third space theory as a way to engage in purposeful reflection into their teaching practices.     

Exploring mathematics teacher knowledge to explain the gap between theory-based recommendations and school practice in the use of connecting tasks

This study is grounded in the theoretical position that solving problems in different ways creates mathematical connections when learning and teaching mathematics. It acknowledges the central role teachers play in providing students with learning opportunities, and it is based on the empirical finding that mathematics teachers are reluctant to solve problems in different ways in the classroom. In this paper we address the contradiction between theory-based recommendations and school mathematics practice. Based on analysis of individual interviews and two group meetings with 12 Israeli secondary school mathematics teachers, we demonstrate that in the context of multiple-solution connecting tasks this discrepancy is caused by the situated nature of the teachers’ knowledge. We also reveal the complex relationship between different types of teacher knowledge and argue the significance of developing a common language between members of the mathematics education community, including teacher educators and researchers. The names of the teachers have been changed to protect their privacy.     

Towards an ‘international forum for teacher educator development’: an agenda for research and action*

The outcomes of an international collaborative project are presented, involving experienced teacher educators and researchers from eight different countries, who engaged in a series of structured discussions on the professional development of teacher educators. We start with an overview of the needs in practice and policy, as well as the research interests, making structured opportunities for teacher educator development necessary. As a first outcome, we present a model to conceptualise teacher educator development, grounded in a study of the international literature and the systematic critical discussion of its findings by the participants in the project. The model facilitates international (research) collaboration, mapping and guiding initiatives in policy and practice by providing both an overview of the complexities of teacher educator development and a language to discuss them. The second –structural- outcome is the establishment of InFo-TED – the International Forum for Teacher Educator Development.     

What and how teacher educators prefer to learn

In which areas and domains do individual teacher educators prefer to work on their professional development? What kind of learning activities do they want to take on and with whom? Are there significant differences in these preferences between teacher educators? This article reports on a recent survey (N = 268) about the professional development of teacher educators and differences in learning preferences between less and more experienced teacher educators and between university-based and school-based teacher educators. Findings show, for example, that while most university-based teacher educators were mainly interested in improving their teaching, less experienced school-based teacher educators were more focussed on aspects such as coaching skills. In this study, ‘learning profiles’ have been developed for four categories of teacher educators. These profiles may help to create more meaningful arrangements for teacher educators’ initial education and further professional development in a context where teacher education is required to have a more school-based as well as a more research-based orientation.     

Collaboration between teacher educators and schools to enhance development

The article focuses on school-based development and how collaboration between teacher educators and leaders and teachers can promote development in teacher education, in school and in the collaboration site in school where both parties meet. The data were collected in Norway through qualitative interviews with groups of teachers and leaders at three schools, and with a group of teacher educators. With the Cultural Historical Activity Theory as the framework, central concepts within this theory have been key elements in the study. The findings reveal that collective collaborative learning is a positive form of enhancing the professional development of teachers and that both structure and culture should interact when fostering development in school. The study also shows that the development of teacher educators’ research competence can enhance development and learning both in teacher education and in school, and also improve the developmental transfer between these two arenas.     

Proposing an Operational Definition of Science Teacher Beliefs

Much research has shown that a science teacher’s beliefs are related to their teaching practice. This line of research has often defined “belief” epistemologically. That is, beliefs are often defined relative to other mental constructs, such as knowledge, dispositions, or attitudes. Left unspecified is the role beliefs play in cognition and how they come to influence science teachers’ classroom practice. As such, researchers and science teacher educators have relied on an (at times, implicit) assumption that there is a direct causal relationship between teachers’ beliefs and classroom practice. In this paper, we propose an operational, as opposed to epistemological, definition of belief. That is, we are explicit about the role a belief plays in science teachers’ cognition and how that leads to classroom practice. We define a belief as a mental representation that influences the practice of a teacher if and only if the belief is active in cognition. We then turn our attention to two limitations in the literature on that have arisen via previous definitions and assumptions regarding science teacher beliefs, showing how defining beliefs operationally helps think about these issues in new ways. The two limitations surround: (1) the difficulty in precisely delineating belief from knowledge; and (2) the interconnectedness of beliefs such that they draw meaning from one another. We then show how our definition of beliefs is congruent with other models of teacher cognition reported in the literature. Finally, we provide implications arising from this definition of belief for both science teacher educators and those who conduct research on the beliefs of both preservice and in-service science teachers.     

The Impact of a Pedagogy of Teacher Education Seminar on Educator and Future Teacher Educator Identities

Educators require support as they move from classroom to higher education settings. This collaborative self-study provides insight into one such support space, a doctoral seminar titled Pedagogy of Teacher Education, and how our identities as educators and future teacher educators developed through participation in the course. Several important themes emerged as we negotiated and adopted new identities as educators, and future teacher educators and researchers. These themes include our development of a collaborative mindset, a teacher educator-researcher perspective, and a critical self-awareness. The findings draw on our professional and personal histories to explore the prominent features that influenced and shaped our identities as educators and future teacher educator-researchers. In sharing our development as educators and future teacher educators, this article provides insights into the ways in which doctoral students in education begin to develop their identities and pedagogies through guided support from more experienced teacher educators.     

Critical issues in supporting self-study

In this article, we focus on an analysis of critical issues in supporting teacher educators conducting a self-study. As data, we have used the digital logbooks written by the participating teacher educators, the outcomes of the interviews we held at the end of the support process, and of a follow-up questionnaire answered by the participating teacher educators six months later. We have found seven issues critical to enhancing the chances of self-studies being beneficial to the practice of teacher education as well as to the further development of a knowledge base for teacher education. In addition, our study points to four themes for further attention and research.     

Global/Cultural Teachers Creating Possibilities: Reading Worlds,Reading Selves,and Learning to Teach

In this article I explore the notion of a global/cultural educator, especially how we as teacher educators prepare future educators for the global communities that they might serve. I argue that our challenge is to prepare educators to work on behalf of, from, alongside, and within communities. To work globally requires educators to bridge the gap between the privileged and the marginalised, between uniformity and diversity, between local and global, across gender and races, and between indigenous and immigrant. To achieve these goals, I posit that we need to go beyond an infusion of the knowledge of various cultures in our curriculum. I suggest that we need to find spaces where the global/cultural educator can have an identity that emerges not from theory alone but from a mix of scholarship, practice, global development, and cultural critique and proceeds in a manner that is responsive, supportive, diverse, and nonoppressive. It is a journey for which we lack a map and indeed may be blinded by our own vision.     

Narratives of Learning from Co-editing,Writing and Presenting Stories of Experience in Self-Study

In this self-study, we look at the contribution made towards our professional learning through an aspect of teacher education work that is not commonly featured in the research literature: exploring the implications of our work as co-editors of an international collection about teacher educators’ journeys of professional becoming. Through this self-study, we argue that this type of work is valuable to individuals and institutions in relation to its impact on the professional learning and career development of teacher educators. Adopting a narrative approach, we examined our experiences of co-editing the book and the associated activities such as conference presentations, to understand how this influenced our professional learning and identity as teacher educators. Findings include having a stronger sense of the evolution of our professional selves over time and greater insight and awareness of our strengths and uncertainties. A clearer perspective on our own career development and professional becoming was evident, and many parallels could be drawn between our experiences of professional becoming and those of the chapter authors in the edited book. We conclude that while activities such as book editing do not usually count in institutional metrics as outputs, they are nonetheless a significant opportunity for professional learning and make a contribution to knowledge and to teacher education practice, and should be recognised as such by institutions and colleagues.     

Teaching Practices Grounded in Foundational Knowledge,Visions, and Contexts

Drawing on our experiences as teacher educators in two programs designed specifically to prepare teachers for particular contexts, this article illustrates how we design our courses to help new teachers link foundational understandings to specific teaching practices in particular school and classroom contexts. We describe our integrated approach, in which candidates learn theory and practice simultaneously, breaking down the dichotomies of theory and practice while connecting to specific contexts or settings and understanding the relationship of practices to visions of good teaching.     

Pedagogical approaches to exploring theory–practice relationships in an outdoor education teacher education programme

Understanding theory–practice relationships in pre-service teacher education is an enduring concern for many teacher educators. Drawing on data from an investigation into the theory–practice nexus in an outdoor education teacher education programme, this article examines pedagogical approaches to exploring theory and practice with pre-service teachers. The investigation, a qualitative case study, examined the views of the programme’s teacher educators (authors) using an analytical lens informed by two similar theoretical models.

The article focuses on elements that were found to be central to pedagogical approaches within the programme: self-awareness, experience, reflexivity, and a “community of learners.” While the approaches represent a departure from “theory application” and “theory–practice integration” approaches, and a move towards praxis development, the study highlighted challenges and issues including the need for teacher educators to scrutinise theory–practice relationships in their own teaching and discourse. Implications and possibilities for future practice are considered.