ten hours a week to their teaching responsibilities (as stated in their teaching assistantship
contract) and the fact that they were (or could see themselves) working twice that amount of
time.
Another issue of balance had to do with figuring out what could be learned from their
research studies that was specific to their teaching. Those who were teaching seemed to have a
harder time relating their research to a broader audience whereas the other seemed to struggle
with drawing lessons from their studies that would help them in their future teaching. Finally
another issue of balance related to how much time was spent in the course on either of these
activities and the challenges of designing meaningful discussions and activities around disparate
teaching contexts and research projects. The following quotes reflect issues of connection and
balance in the students’ writings. Both reflect insights they experienced through research
activities that connected with their teaching. The latter raises questions about the feasibility of
doing research while teaching.
Previous [to this research project] my true goal, even when asking questions, had
always been to change my students’ teaching—to get them to expand what they had
done well and reduce what had been done poorly. It was only when I gave up that
agenda that I was really able to hear what my students were saying and to give them
the space to reflect on their own teaching.
This is the first time I have ever transcribed anything. I often found that I would type
out what I heard and then listen to the tape again only to discover that I had
unintentionally edited the transcript. Usually my mental editing maintained the
meaning, but occasionally the meaning was different! I was amazed at how much
information I might lose by taking notes and not audiotaping. But who has time to do
all this?
Discussion
We return to the questions raised earlier to discuss the significance of these results. In terms
of what is involved in learning to teach future teachers of mathematics, we find evidence in our
data of Wenger’s proposal that processes of learning, in this case of learning to teach future
teachers of mathematics, involves not just an accumulation of skills and information, but also an
experience of identity—that of becoming or avoiding becoming a certain person. In this process
of becoming, students wrestled with common challenges associated with beginners—credibility
and integrity. This is an interesting parallel to challenges associated with beginning and novice
teachers. This suggests that these issues (and perhaps others) are indeed central to what it means
to learn a new practice such as the practice of teaching. Finding these factors present and central
among this new population (preservice teacher educators) serves to reinforce their generality and
thus importance.
Another important result relates to differences found between the two groups of students who
participated in the course—concurrent and delayed teaching. These students’ experiences in the
course differed in terms of their developing identity as mathematics teacher educators but most
prominently in their perspectives on what was interesting, useful, feasible, and valuable about the
teaching and research aspects of the course. Whether one had an authentic context in which to
explore what was being learned in the course played out in some unexpected ways. It issued
challenges in terms of how either group connected and balanced activities of teaching and
researching. Managing these challenges afforded and constrained what students chose to explore,
what they chose to experiment with, and what they could see from their research studies.
In terms of the kinds of formal and programmatic experiences that might help prepare future
mathematics teacher educators, we propose that it is possible for a course to offer rich learning
opportunities for those who are concurrently teaching and to those who are delaying teaching
(but have a teaching site in which to explore what they are learning in the course). Although it
can be challenging to design experiences that are meaningful to both sets of students, restricting
the course to either group would limit the richness of their respective experiences. We also
propose that such a course needs a dual and equal focus on teaching and research activities.
Attention to either one alone would fail to address the development of the students’ identities as
Convention