Perspectives on Practice: A New Way to Engage in a Mathematics Teacher Educator Conversation
One of the great things about getting back to in-person conferences are the opportunities to engage our colleagues in conversation about their work. While formal sessions and presentations are certainly a big opportunity to do so, one thing we have always relished are the informal settings, like conference receptions and hallway conversations. In these settings, we often talk with our colleagues about what we’ve made of their work, how we’ve used it in our own practice, and what the outcomes were.
Mathematics Teacher Educator’s goal as a journal is to describe and build the knowledge base for mathematics teacher education. One of the original images that Peg Smith had for the journal was the notion of extended and connected conversations about tools, interventions, and innovations with preservice and practicing mathematics teachers. MTE is unique in that the journal’s manuscripts include the description of tools, interventions, or innovations at such a level that others can adopt or adapt them in their own contexts. Peg imagined that as articles appeared in print, other mathematics teacher educators would try the innovations described and collect additional evidence of efficacy in their own settings, with some ultimately writing about those implementations later on down the line. Over time, this would result in a series of connected conversations about the tools within the pages of the journal.
In the upcoming Volume 11, Issue 2 of Mathematics Teacher Educator, we have finally begun to realize that vision. Our editorial team (Mike Steele and Kate Johnson) launched a new manuscript type in 2022 called Perspectives on Practice. This article format is a short (about 4 page) description of how a group of mathematics teacher educators have applied one of the tools, interventions, or innovations that has appeared in a previous MTE article. In our initial call, we identified three manuscripts that had high levels of readership and tools that we believed were in broad use in the field. The idea behind the new manuscript type is for authors to describe how they adapted the tool to their own setting and needs, to share some brief evidence of how that implementation panned out, and to provide the field with further ideas about implementation that go beyond the initial article’s analysis.
In the February issue of MTE, two Perspectives on Practice manuscripts are scheduled to appear. Both are implementations of the Flint Water Task, featured in an article by Aguirre and colleagues (2019). Casey and colleagues (2023) describe how they adapted the task to engage mathematics teachers in statistical investigations related to social justice issues. Grosser-Clarkson and colleagues (2023) write about their implementation of the same task but using KWL charts and gallery walks to scaffold thinking and engagement. Both of these articles provide new insights that are inspired by the initial authors’ work on the task and its implementation.
We envision Perspectives on Practice to be important to the journal in at least two ways. First, the format provides specific opportunities to describe further iterations of a tool, intervention, or innovation in mathematics teacher education. Given that replication and reproduction stories are desperately needed across the field of mathematics education, Perspectives on Practice provides a dedicated space for such stories with relatively low authoring overhead. We also are reprinting the original article alongside each Perspectives on Practice piece to invite continued engagement with the original ideas. Second, the focus on implementation of an already-described idea may invite a more diverse authorship to the journal. Many of the tasks described in MTE are being used by mathematics teacher educators whose primary focus is on teacher professional learning. These contexts include district-level mathematics teacher educators, coaches, intermediate school district professional development staff, and faculty at non-research-intensive institutions. We particularly encourage these groups to consider submitting a Perspectives on Practice manuscript, developed on your own or in collaboration with others. Being able to hear the voices of this important MTE constituency and readership will add richness and nuance to the journal’s conversations.
The Perspectives on Practice call invites you to join in on our journal’s hallway conversations about ideas or innovations in mathematics teacher education, much like we’d experience at an in-person convening. We’re looking forward to bumping into you in Perspectives on Practice – we’ve been looking forward to hearing more about what you’re up to in your work!
References
Aguirre, J., Anhalt, C., Cortez, R., Turner, E., & Simic-Muller, K. (2019). Engaging teachers in the powerful combination of mathematical modeling and social justice: The Flint water task. Mathematics Teacher Educator 7(2), 7-26.
Casey, S., Bondurant, L., & Ross, A. (2023). Engaging teachers in the combination of statistical investigation and social justice: Fairness in school funding. Mathematics Teacher Educator 11(2).
Grosser-Clarkson, D. L. & Hung, J. S. (2023). Adaptations to support the Flint water task. Mathematics Teacher Educator 11(2).