The Knowledge for Teaching Secondary School Mathematics (KnoTSS) project examines the nature and process of collaborations between mathematicians and mathematics teacher educators engaged in the preparation of secondary mathematics teachers. KnoTSS participants are teams of mathematicians and educators who co-teach two courses (one mathematics course and one methods of teaching mathematics course) aimed at building integrated knowledge of content and pedagogy. KnoTSS research will answer the following questions: How do collaborations develop and evolve? How can they be fostered within institutions? What is the intellectual terrain co-created and traversed by collaborators? How do they negotiate its boundaries? How do they position themselves with respect to it and to each other?
This project investigated ways to improve university courses for future middle and high school mathematics teachers. Currently, courses in mathematics are usually taught by research mathematicians and courses about how to teach mathematics are taught by teacher education specialists. These instructors may not have much (if any) interaction with one another, and they may come from different academic cultures (mathematics and education). However, their students need to see the connections between the mathematics they take in college and their future work as teachers. In order to begin to break down these barriers and improve teacher preparation, this project engaged four mathematicians and four educators, from around the U.S., in co-teaching mathematics and methods of teaching courses at their universities. A total of eight courses were co-taught during four semesters. Findings from this project include (1) strategies for incorporating mathematics and teaching methods into the courses, (2) challenges and benefits of working across academic cultures, and (3) methods for studying co-teaching that can be used in future studies. Each of the instructors in this study found co-teaching to be rewarding and beneficial to them as teachers, and potentially beneficial to their students as well. All instructors reported that co-teaching was extremely time-consuming. All but one of the eight instructors has presented what they learned (including strategies for better integrating future teachers’ coursework) at national conferences attended by others who teach future teachers. One of the co-teaching teams has published a book chapter about their experiences as well.
