ABSTRACT
A time of crisis is a time of uncertainty, when many decisions need to be made. This study combines self-reflection, along with community inquiry, as three mathematics teacher educators recount a lesson that they taught in the past and how it was changed due to the COVID-19 crisis. Decisions were analyzed in terms of goals, orientations, and resources. The findings showed that the key issue was the immediate requirement to change one's regular routine. For some, resources were replaced. For others, dominant orientations receded to the background, and new goals were set. A final reflection conducted after returning to the classroom revealed how challenges during the crisis led to change and the adoption of new goals both during and after the crisis, clarifying our values and leading to the use of additional resources today. © 2023 by the authors.
ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses an exploratory study that examined the use of WhatsApp in mathematics teacher education as a remedial alternative to the accessibility challenges of specialised online educational platforms. Participants were drawn from a class of 41 preservice secondary school mathematics teachers during their final year at a public university in Malawi. The COVID-19 pandemic necessitated a switch from the usual face-to-face mode to specialised e-learning platforms provided by the university. The study attempted to answer the question: What are the factors that influence preservice teachers' adoption of an online interactive teaching platform in connectivity-constrained settings? Data were collected from the transcripts of the online class discussions. The Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology was used as both the theoretical and analytical framework. The chapter discusses ways in which the preservice teachers adapted the features of WhatsApp for moderating online lessons and how they proposed innovative ways of using the platform for handling special features of teacher education such as peer teaching. These are discussed with respect to the knowledge demands on mathematics teachers amidst the fourth industrial revolution, with the guidance of the Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge framework. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.
ABSTRACT
Math proficiency in the elementary grades is one component to ensuring a highly qualified science, math, engineering, and technology workforce. The literature indicates that teachers of those early years greatly impact their students' future attitudes and abilities in the STEM fields. Therefore, it is critical that administrators, teacher education programs, and policymakers implement procedures to prepare and empower preservice teachers. This hermeneutic phenomenology focused on novice teachers' impressions of their preparedness regarding kindergarten and elementary math content and pedagogy. Ten teachers answered questions about their past educational experiences, their current teaching position, and strategies for addressing challenges. Unfamiliar curriculum and gaps in basic student knowledge were two of the difficulties that the teachers mentioned. They faced these issues through differentiation, collaboration, and self-reflection. Collaborating with a mentor or colleagues allowed these novice teachers to glean resources and strategies that helped them navigate elementary math content and pedagogy. In addition, this study revealed the influence that the teachers' resilience had on their ability to maneuver the difficulties inherent in the first two years as a classroom teacher. The impact of attending a faith-based university, the influence of middle-school math teachers, resilience in kindergarten through elementary teachers, and managing the consequences of Covid-19 restrictions in schools warrant further study as they relate to math content and instruction in kindergarten through fifth-grade mathematics. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)
ABSTRACT
COVID-19 has caused unprecedented disruption to mathematics teacher education worldwide. This paper is anchored in our learnings from the experiences of teacher educators at four major universities from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations as they dealt with changes in their programs' delivery triggered by the pandemic, and raises challenges that remain for the futures of post-pandemic mathematics teacher education. Here, we use the two ethical constructs of responsiveness and responsibility to guide actions in response to a crisis, in order to discuss a range of decisions the participants made to respond to the crisis. Behind their initial response to the emergent conditions, the participants were concerned about maintaining the continuity of their students' education. Further, we identify remaining challenges for mathematics teacher educators to re-imagine their curriculum, teaching, assessment, and equitable access towards a more relevant, productive, and equitable mathematics teacher education. This study adds to the rapidly increasing literature on the effect of the pandemic on mathematics education in the following three ways: (1) here we take a comprehensive view of the disruptions instigated by the pandemic;, (2) we pay special attention to issues of equity; and (3) we address concerns about possible and desirable post-pandemic futures.
ABSTRACT
This chapter reflects on the author's experience teaching mathematics education courses remotely to elementary teacher candidates at the undergraduate and graduate levels during the time of COVID-19. Pros and cons of remote teaching using Zoom as an online teaching system are highlighted and discussed through the voices of teacher candidates gleaned from their solicited reflections on the novel educational experience. The virtual teaching and learning of mathematics is described using the classic notion of the instrumental act introduced by Vygotsky. It is argued that the duality in the role of an instrument as an agent of education allows one not only to see the online teaching through the lens of the instrumental act, but it enables the emergence of new ideas leading to the improvement of remote delivery of mathematics education courses. Reflective journals written by teacher candidates as part of their pre-student teaching course work supervised by the author provide another source of disciplined inquiry into the teacher education of unsettling times. © 2021 Nova Science Publishers, Inc.