M-Cubed: Utilizing tertiary mathematics in and for secondary mathematics teaching
Leading team
Project members
- Yael Adamovsky
- Shlomit Bergman
- Irit Elior
- Ohad Noy Feldheim
- Michael Gorodin
- Raz Kupferman
- Riva Machluf
- Rachel Mann
- Noa Nitzan
- Irena Nuzhdin
- Ori Parzanchevski
- Esther Sternfield-Gruenhut
Summary
Academic mathematics courses are considered an essential aspect of teacher education, yet research suggests that secondary mathematics (SM) teachers rarely draw on these courses in their teaching. M-Cubed (Mathematicians, Mathematics teachers, Mathematics) seeks to improve this situation by creating a rich corpus of examples of implementation of academic mathematics in and for SM teaching in order to identify and delineate the processes underlying such implementations. To this end, we are using an environment designed especially to generate and externalize the aforementioned processes: video-based forums where mathematicians and practicing SM teachers watch lesson-episodes and inquire together into the pedagogical dilemmas that arise therein. These dilemmas are carefully selected to trigger cross-community interactions, in which diverse expertise, knowledge, perspectives and values are made explicit and explored in the context of concrete instructional situations. Data collected in these forums enable a systematic analysis of the various ways by which mathematicians and teachers’ mathematical and pedagogical knowledge can intertwine and generate new insights that extend teachers’ repertoire of options and considerations in their teaching. This study is entering its second year and is funded by a grant of the Israel Science Foundation.
Administration
Links for further reading
- Pinto, A., & Cooper, J. (2016). In the Pursuit of Relevance – Mathematicians Designing Tasks for Elementary School Teachers. International Journal of Research in Undergraduate Mathematics Education, 3(2), 311-337. DOI
- Cooper, J., & Pinto, A. (2017). Mathematical and pedagogical perspectives on warranting: approximating the root of 18. For the Learning of Mathematics, 37(2), 8-13.
- Cooper, J., & Pinto, A. (2018). Jourdain and Dienes effects revisited – playing tic tac toe or learning non-Euclidean geometry? In E. Bergqvist, M. Österholm, C. Granberg, & L. Sumpter (Eds.) Proceedings of the 42nd Conference of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education (Vol. 2, pp. 307-314). Umeå, Sweden.
- Pinto, A., & Cooper, J. (submitted). The road not taken – A methodology for investigating affordances of infinitesimal calculus for teaching secondary mathematics.