Keith Leatham recently published an article titled “How We Are Preparing Secondary Mathematics Teachers to Teach With Technology: Findings From a Nationwide Survey” in the Journal for Research in Mathematics Education. Keith has answered a few questions about this article below:
Who were your co-authors on this article?
Allison W. McCulloch, Jennifer N. Lovett, Nina Gabrielle Bailey, and Samuel D. Reed
Who would you say is the target audience for this article?
Mathematics teacher educators
What is the big problem you hoped to address with this article?
The problem was a lack of understanding of the US as a whole prepares mathematics teachers to teach with technology. Without this information it was difficult to determine to what extent we are meeting the standards and vision that we have articulated and aspired to as a mathematics teacher education community.
What are some of the key ideas in the article?
Only about 25% of programs have a course specifically designed to focus on learning and teaching mathematics with technology. Just over 40% of those courses only offer such training as one small part of their mathematics methods course. Dynamic Geometry Software continues to be an important part of this training, but students are much more likely to be introduced to such software in a technology-specific course than in a methods course. A substantial number of those who do not have a technology-specific course indicated that they could not do so because of program credit limits or low program enrollments.
What are some of the main ideas you hope your audience will take from this article?
We hope that people will see how difficult it is to actually meet the standards without a technology-specific course, possibly motivating them to advocate for one.
What else would you like to say about the article?
This study built on a similar study that I conducted 15 years ago. It was fun to be involved in carrying out a follow-up study of my own prior work.
Abstract:
The field of mathematics teacher education has been moving collectively toward a common goal of preparing prospective mathematics teachers to teach with technology. In this article, we present findings from a national survey of accredited university secondary mathematics teacher education programs. The purpose of the study is to describe the current state of the ways in which programs are preparing preservice teachers to teach secondary mathematics with technology.