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We report on an effort to vet a list of 10 student learning objectives (SLOs) for geometry courses taken by prospective geometry teachers. Members of a faculty online learning community, including mathematicians and mathematics educators who teach college geometry courses taken by prospective secondary teachers developed this list in an effort to reach a consensus that might satisfy various stakeholders. To provide feedback on the final list of 10 SLOs, we constructed and collected responses to a survey in which 121 college geometry instructors ranked a set of potential SLOs, including the 10 proposed SLOs as well as 11 distractors. The 10 SLOs were, for the most part, among the highest ranked by the sample. 

For centuries, there has been a debate about the role of undergraduate education in society. Some have argued that universities should focus on practical skills and knowledge to prepare students for the workforce, while others have supported the idea that universities should prioritize providing a broad understanding of disciplinary knowledge and practices. In this paper, we leverage data collected from 32 interviews to explore how instructors of the undergraduate geometry course for teachers (GeT) talk about the various tensions they experience in their work. Three distinct ways of talking about tensions emerged from the data: the tension as a dilemma that needs to be managed, the tension as a place to take sides, the tension as an opportunity to reframe aspects of the work. In closing we draw connections between these patterns in the data and the two perspectives about the role of undergraduate mathematics courses in preparing PTs for the work of teaching. 

Math anxiety refers to feelings people get when facing computational challenges. The fear of failure often causes people to avoid activities, like taking challenging mathematics courses or choosing majors that require mathematics. Grit describes how people persist or persevere in the wake of failure. This article looks at factors that contribute to a person having grit and the interaction of grit and math anxiety. Students (N = 258) enrolled in college math classes at a large university completed a set of surveys that indicated their levels of self-compassion, mindfulness, self-efficacy, math anxiety, and grit. The analyses of the data found that grit predicted math anxiety, and that self-compassion, mindfulness, and self-efficacy predicted grit. The results of this study suggest that promoting factors that help students develop grit can in turn affect their math anxiety and thus their persistence in mathematics courses and STEM majors. 

While proving, and more broadly conceived “reasoning and sense-making,” have received a great deal of attention in mathematics education research over the past three decades, recently scholars have argued for the importance of justification as a learning and teaching practice. As teachers work toward realizing goals for more equitable classroom environments, little is known about whether teachers’ conceptions about mathematical practices, such as justification, reflect an understanding of how students’ engagement in those practices can support more than just mathematical achievement. In this paper, we present findings from our analysis of interviews with 10 secondary mathematics teachers engaged in participatory action research to explore connections, and potential disconnections, between teachers’ conceptions of justification and their visions for equitable instruction. 

In this study, 82 middle and high school teachers engaged with the InSTEP online professional learning platform to develop their expertise in teaching data science and statistics. We investigated teachers’ engagement within the platform, aspects of the platform that were most and least effective in building teachers’ expertise, and the extent to which teachers’ self-efficacy changed. Using mixed methods, we collected, analyzed and integrated multiple data sources. 

In this study, 82 middle and high school teachers engaged with the InSTEP online professional learning platform to develop their expertise in teaching data science and statistics. We investigated teachers’ engagement within the platform, aspects of the platform that were most and least effective in building teachers’ expertise, and the extent to which teachers’ self-efficacy changed. Using mixed methods, we collected, analyzed and integrated multiple data sources.