(Page 3 of 7) - Learning to teach preservice mathematics teachers: The role of a doctoral course authored by Crespo, Sandra. and Speer, Natasha.

educator.” Another stated: “While I have always wanted to be a teacher educator, I was as
surprised as anyone to discover that what I wanted to focus on was math.” And another
confessed: “I found myself interested in teaching teachers because I needed a job in graduate
school.”

Another theme we examine is the value participants attributed to the “practical” and

“research” aspects of the course, and the ways these activities influenced their thinking and
teaching practices. Throughout the course, students had opportunities to analyze syllabi, create
and discuss records of teacher educators’ practices (lesson plans, cases, class videos,
observations of others’ teaching), and analyze preservice teachers’ work. They also had
opportunities to engage in more research-oriented activities, such as reading and analyzing
research papers with a focus on mathematics teacher education, designing and conducting a
research project within their teaching context, and sharing their work with a broader audience
through presentations. Understanding our participants’ perceptions of their experiences with
these two kinds of activities can shed light on their development processes.

Results

We choose to report by theme rather than by individual case to ensure anonymity of our

students. To that end, we are purposefully unspecific about the research project questions any
one student investigated since these projects have been presented at conferences and might
become publications. We use clusters of quotes and summarize similar points of views so that no
one particular case is revealed. Instead we present the results as a composite case of the common
issues experienced by the students. Next we report on preliminary findings from our analysis of
the data. First, we report on students’ experiences related to developing a mathematics teacher
educator identity; and second on interactions with the teaching and research related activities of
the course.
To Be or Not to Be! Challenges of Becoming a Mathematics Teacher Educator

Wenger (1998) argues that learning involves the development of identity, the changing of

who we are, in the context of the communities of practice in which we participate. He states:
“Because learning transforms who we are and what we can do it is an experience of identity. It is
not just an accumulation of skills and information, but a process of becoming–to become a
certain person or, conversely, to avoid becoming a certain person” (p. 215). Our identities, then,
are shaped by our participation or non-participation in various practices, which in turn shapes our
communities of practice. Developing an identity is a constant process of negotiation. “We are
always simultaneously dealing with specific situations, participating in the histories of certain
practices, and involved in becoming certain persons” (Wenger, 1998, p. 155).

The move from classroom teacher to graduate school is as awkward as any other life event

when the old self moves out of familiar places and practices and into new ones. The graduate
students came with varying degrees of experience teaching in K-12 schools (zero to ten years);
three had teaching experiences beyond K-12; one taught content courses (in a different subject);
another taught teacher education courses outside of the U.S.; and another was a teacher leader
who provided professional development to other teachers.

The students differed in teaching assignment (elementary, secondary, not teaching). The

three who were not teaching ‘shadowed’ another instructor throughout the duration of the course.
They also differed in the extent to which they identified themselves as ‘math smart’ or ‘math
strugglers;’ and in their views on their accomplishments as teachers. Most, regardless of
background in mathematics (major, minor, minimal), considered themselves ‘math frauds’—
students who had good or hard-earned grades but had never really understood mathematics until
some life changing experience with it occurred (during undergraduate studies, in teacher
preparation, in professional development) that hooked them into wanting to learn more for
themselves and share it with others. Some said they liked mathematics more when they started to
teach than when they studied it in school. Regardless of their experiences with mathematics or
teaching, each student had come to graduate school because they wanted to learn more about
mathematics, research, and/or teaching.

As mentioned earlier, students hesitated to identify themselves as mathematics teacher

educators. In their mathematics education biographies they wrote little about what they