Abstract
Post-secondary mathematics faculty members have an important role to play in the preparation of future mathematics teachers at all levels and in the support and professional development of in-service mathematics teachers. This work can be demanding and time-consuming and constitute a significant professional contribution. Some departments now recognize, support and reward this work, while others do not. This article offers a view of this landscape from the perspective of a department chair and provides some suggestions for conversations that could take place within the department, for conversations of practitioners with their chairs, and for conversations across the broader university. In particular, if this work is to be properly valued by departments and institutions, it must be evaluated in a thorough and sustained way.
Dedicated to Professor Roger Howe on his 70th Birthday.
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Notes
- 1.
We use this term to include all departments of mathematical sciences in the broad sense. Minor modifications may be required in discussing different institutional configurations such as separate departments of pure and applied mathematics, or of mathematics and statistics, but the broad picture is the same.
- 2.
As an example, 843 teaching credentials—in all subjects—were awarded by the entire University of California system (with nine undergraduate campuses) in 2013–2014 (Purdue and Suckow, 2015, Table G), while the total undergraduate headcount in this system in Fall 2013 was 188,088 (UC System Infocenter website). Of course, the size of programs to prepare future teachers varies considerably from institution to institution, and in some it is a good bit larger.
- 3.
Even if they work with administrators who already view the preparation of K-12 math teachers as an appreciable part of a math department’s mission, such considerations may arise in competing for scarce university resources.
- 4.
Recent discussions of metrics for evaluating the impact of scholarship in mathematics suggest that even the evaluation of mathematics is not entirely straightforward; see, for example, the section on metrics in Andrews (2012).
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Friedberg, S. (2018). The Contributions of Mathematics Faculty to K-12 Education: A Department Chair’s Perspective. In: Li, Y., Lewis, W., Madden, J. (eds) Mathematics Matters in Education. Advances in STEM Education. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-61434-2_15
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