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In 1908, Felix Klein suggested that to mend the discontinuity that prospective secondary teachers face, university instruction must account for teachers’ needs. More than a century later, problems of discontinuity remain. Our project addresses the dilemma of discontinuity in university mathematics courses through simulating core teaching practices in mathematically intensive ways. In other words, we interpret teachers’ needs to include integrating content and pedagogy. We argue that doing so has the potential to impact teachers’ competence. To make this argument, we report fndings from the Mathematics of Doing, Understanding, Learning, and Educating for Secondary Schools (MODULE(S2)) project. The results are based on data from 324 prospective secondary mathematics teachers (PSMTs) enrolled in courses using curricular materials developed by the project in four content areas (algebra, geometry, modeling, and statistics). We operationalized competence in terms of PSMTs’ content knowledge for teaching and their motivation for enacting core teaching practices. We examined pre- and post-term data addressing these constructs. We found mean increases in PSMTs’ outcomes in content knowledge for teaching and aspects of motivation. 

In the past two decades, there has been a trend in materials for mathematics courses for prospective secondary teachers: more opportunities for teachers to “apply mathematics to teaching”. That is, materials increasingly highlight how mathematical knowledge learned in the course can be useful in secondary teaching, and provide opportunities for teachers to harness this knowledge in simulations of teaching. There is little known about the effects of this curricular reform on teachers’ competence. In this report, we use data from the Mathematics of Doing, Understanding, Learning, and Educating for Secondary Schools MODULE(S2) project to examine the potential impact of using such curricular materials. The data include over 300 prospective secondary teachers’ responses to 3 sets of Likert pre-/post-term surveys addressing: mathematical knowledge for teaching; expectancy for enacting selected core teaching practices; and valuing of enacting these practices. We found mean increases across the survey results. We conclude with directions for future research on the impact of this curricular reform. 

Although it is well known that motivational and cognitive resources influence secondary teachers’ instructional quality, less is known about the tertiary instructional factors that influence secondary teachers’ development of these resources. To address this gap, we report on factors that prospective secondary teachers attribute to their learning. We draw on survey responses of 70 prospective secondary teachers enrolled in mathematics courses for teachers using Mathematics of Doing, Understanding, Learning, and Educating for Secondary Schools (MODULE(S2)) materials in one of four content areas. We triangulate response themes with data from 300 prospective secondary teachers on their perceptions of instructional practices used in a mathematics course for teachers using the same suite of materials. Then, we compare these themes with literature documenting implementation of mathematics curricula in these courses. We argue that coordinating mathematics content, applications of mathematics to teaching practices, and tertiary instructional practices are key to success of these mathematics courses. 

In the past two decades, there has been a trend in materials for mathematics courses for prospective secondary teachers: more opportunities for teachers to “apply mathematics to teaching”. That is, materials increasingly highlight how mathematical knowledge learned in the course can be useful in secondary teaching, and provide opportunities for teachers to harness this knowledge in simulations of teaching. There is little known about the effects of this curricular reform on teachers’ competence. In this report, we use data from the Mathematics of Doing, Understanding, Learning, and Educating for Secondary Schools MODULE(S2) project to examine the potential impact of using such curricular materials. The data include over 300 prospective secondary teachers’ responses to 3 sets of Likert pre-/post-term surveys addressing: mathematical knowledge for teaching; expectancy for enacting selected core teaching practices; and valuing of enacting these practices. We found mean increases across the survey results. We conclude with directions for future research on the impact of this curricular reform. 

There is a lack of teacher education materials that develop equity literacy in content courses for preservice secondary mathematics teachers. In response, we created teacher education curriculum materials for introductory statistics that include an integrated focus on developing equity literacy and critical statistical literacy.

In this article, we provide an overview of our materials’ design along with a detailed look at one activity regarding racial demographics and tracking in high school STEM courses. We present evidence regarding the positive impact of these materials on the teacher candidates’ competency, value, and likelihood of applying their equity literacy and critical statistical literacy. Implications for mathematics teacher educators working to develop equity literacy together with content knowledge are discussed.