Developing teachers through their mathematical coursework is an important aim of teacher education. Yet many prospective teachers do not find their university mathematics coursework to be professionally relevant to their work teaching secondary students (e.g., Wasserman et al., 2018; Zazkis & Leikin, 2010). Much of the focus of mathematical coursework, especially as it pertains to teacher education, centers around developing particular content ideas – i.e., particular mathematical knowledge. Yet, teaching is a function of more than just a teacher’s knowledge – it includes both cognitive and affective resources (knowledge and beliefs), as well as situation-specific skills (practices). In this talk, I explore the incorporation of pedagogical mathematical practices (PMPs) (Wasserman et al., 2022) in a real analysis course as a means to connect to teaching, reporting on a study that looked at how, and why, teachers later took them up in their own secondary classrooms.

Bio:

Dr. Wasserman's scholarly interests lie primarily in teacher education, particularly in secondary teachers’ (advanced) mathematical knowledge and development. Simplistically, this work revolves around a central question: What does a secondary mathematics teacher, for example an algebra teacher, gain from taking advanced mathematics courses, such as abstract algebra? This work explores the intersection of a teacher’s knowledge of advanced mathematics and the practices they engage in while teaching mathematics. Primarily, this has been in the context of two tertiary mathematics courses: Abstract Algebra and Real Analysis. As part of this work, he has collaborated with various faculty from other national and international institutions to develop an instructional model for teaching advanced mathematics courses for secondary teacher education.