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The Mathematical Education of Teachers II report by the Conference Board of the Mathematical Sciences (2012) recommends that undergraduate programs enhance prospective secondary mathematics teachers’ (PSMTs) understanding of connections between the advanced undergraduate mathematics content and the mathematics they will teach. This paper examines the connections to teaching made by one instructor and one undergraduate PSMT after implementation of two calculus lessons aimed at supporting connections to teaching. Each lesson embedded approximations of practice tasks in the learning of calculus content. Findings suggest that these lessons enabled both deepening mathematical content knowledge and insight into the work of teaching. 

The Mathematical Education of Teachers as an Application of Undergraduate Mathematics project provides lessons integrated into various mathematics major courses that incorporate mathematics teaching connections as a legitimate application area of undergraduate mathematics. One feature of the lessons involves posing tasks that require undergraduates to interpret or analyze the work of another student. This paper reports on thematic analysis of hour-long interviews for eight participants enrolled in an undergraduate abstract algebra course from two different implementation sites. We focus on student work and reactions to these interpreting or analyzing student thinking (AST) applications as they relate to their perceptions regarding the use of AST applications as a mechanism to both deepen their content knowledge and improve their skills for communicating mathematics. Several participants identify positive benefits, but more research is needed to determine the how to incorporate AST applications to accommodate some participants’ reluctance to engage in new mathematical contexts. 

When implementing lessons connecting advanced undergraduate mathematics to school mathematics, challenges arise for faculty and for the undergraduate students. The Mathematical Education of Teachers as an Application of Undergraduate Mathematics (META Math) project has created, piloted, and field-tested lessons for undergraduate mathematics and statistics courses typically part of a mathematics major that leads to secondary mathematics teacher certification. Lessons in calculus, discrete mathematics, algebra, and statistics explicitly link topics in college mathematics with high school mathematics topics prospective teachers will eventually teach. The goal of this poster presentation is to discuss our preliminary observations of the challenges faced by faculty and undergraduate students when implementing or using these lessons. We also wish to gather feedback and suggestions on the study design and potential directions for further research.