Mathematics teacher educators' thinking about mutuality in teaching

Abstract

Stakeholders agree that the mathematical education of teachers needs to focus on mathematical knowledge for teaching, but the practice-based nature of this knowledge poses challenges for mathematics teacher educatorsfor understanding it, developing tasks that maintain its integrity in practice, and teaching it to teachers in ways that meaningfully support their learning to teach. We know little, however, about how mathematics teacher educators conceptualize the teaching that knowledge is to support. Our analysis reveals that thinking develops from a view of teaching as straightforward, where aspects can be treated in isolation, to a view of it as requiring focused attention while maintaining mutual regard for the whole. This difference has implications for how mathematics teacher educators understand specialized mathematical knowledge and for how to support their understanding and teaching of it.