What do we value in secondary mathematics teaching methods?

ABSTRACT

Teaching methods courses are a crucial factor in the preparation of secondary mathematics teachers. Throughout the United States, secondary methods courses have diverse curricula, including variation in the topics covered in these courses. To assess this variation, the authors identified 41 topics potentially valued by secondary methods instructors, referred to here as touchstones. The set of touchstones was revised based on peer feedback and was used as the basis of a survey administered to 116 secondary mathematics teaching methods instructors from different U.S. universities. The survey asked respondents to determine the value they placed on each touchstone. Simple means and standard deviations were calculated, and variations by instructors’ departments (mathematics or education) and levels of professorship (i.e., assistant, associate, and full) were examined using analysis of variance (ANOVA). Results indicated which touchstones were highly valued and which touchstones were not. Variances between departments and levels of professorship varied significantly for a few of the touchstones. Finally, the limited open-response suggestions for additional touchstones indicate that most respondents agreed with the survey’s design.

KEYWORDS:

• Secondary teacher education
• teaching methods courses
• touchstones

Acknowledgments

We thank the Service, Teaching, and Research (STaR) program and the Association of Mathematics Teacher Educators (AMTE) for facilitating this study, and we thank the Southeastern Conference faculty travel grant program for supporting our continued work.

Notes

¹ Whereas the CAEP (2015) uses the term “educational preparation programs” (EPP) to refer to multiple kinds of educators beyond teachers, our work focuses specifically on teacher preparation. Thus we use TPP (as a subset of EPP) for a more accurate depiction of our work.