Prospective Secondary Math Teachers Encountering STEM in a Methods Course: When Math is More Than “Just Math”
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.46328/ijte.41Keywords:
STEM education, Mathematical practices, Math education, Teacher educationAbstract
Education reforms in the United States and abroad have increased efforts to improve student interest and capacity in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics). Despite these attempts, students still have little opportunity to engage in STEM learning in K-12 education. This qualitative case study was designed to investigate how incorporating STEM into teacher education can promote STEM teaching as well as enhance math instruction. The study took place in the fourth year of an undergraduate teacher education program spanning a secondary math and science Methods course and student teaching. Guided by the framework of sensemaking, individual interviews, teaching artifacts, and written reflections for four teachers were analyzed to identify moments of dissonance that pushed participants to reach new understandings about the learning and teaching of math. Findings indicated that learning to teach math through the lens of STEM shifted pre-service teachers’ instructional emphasis in two ways: 1) figuring out math vs. learning about math; and 2) teaching math through authentic STEM contexts as opposed to focusing purely on mathematics. However, experiences in student teaching can either enhance or stifle these gains. Findings suggest the role of teacher education in promoting STEM education by shifting prospective teachers’ mindsets about mathematics and teaching.References
Marco-Bujosa, L. (2021). Prospective secondary math teachers encountering STEM in a methods course: When math is more than “just math”. International Journal of Technology in Education (IJTE), 4(2), 247-286. https://doi.org/10.46328/ijte.41
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Articles may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Authors alone are responsible for the contents of their articles. The journal owns the copyright of the articles. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings, demand, or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of the research material.
The author(s) of a manuscript agree that if the manuscript is accepted for publication in the International Journal of Technology in Education (IJTE), the published article will be copyrighted using a Creative Commons “Attribution 4.0 International” license. This license allows others to freely copy, distribute, and display the copyrighted work, and derivative works based upon it, under certain specified conditions.
Authors are responsible for obtaining written permission to include any images or artwork for which they do not hold copyright in their articles, or to adapt any such images or artwork for inclusion in their articles. The copyright holder must be made explicitly aware that the image(s) or artwork will be made freely available online as part of the article under a Creative Commons “Attribution 4.0 International” license.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.