Ear to the Ground features voices from several corners of the mathematics education world.
Amanda Helgerson
This department provides a space for current and past PK–12 teachers of mathematics to connect with other teachers of mathematics through their stories that lend personal and professional support.
Lucy Rycroft-Smith
This piece is a rumination on flow, pattern, and edges/transitions, focusing on polynomials of odd degree and overlaying/underlaying the flow of the graphical structure with a rainbow to suggest the central importance of queer visibility in mathematics.
Journal Issue
Elana Reiser
In this activity, students find the theoretical probabilities of winning a coin toss and a round of the rock, paper, scissors game. They next devise strategies to win and test them out. Students then compare the theoretical probabilities they found with the experimental probabilities.
Corey Webel and Sheunghyun Yeo
In this article, we share results from a field experience model in which junior-year methods classes were held in an elementary school and preservice teachers (PSTs) worked with a single student (a “Math Buddy") on mathematics for 30 minutes per day. We focus on the development of PSTs’ skills for exploring children’s thinking and the structures and tools that we used to support this development. Data sources include screencast recordings of interactions with Math Buddies and written reflections completed by PSTs. Although the responsiveness of interactions varied across individuals and interactions, in general, PSTs showed improvements in exploring children’s thinking. We share implications of these findings for similar field experience models and for practice-based approaches to teacher education generally.
Min Wang, Candace Walkington, and Koshi Dhingra
An example of an after-school club activity gives educators some tools and suggestions to implement such an approach in their schools.
Karen Hollebrands, Heather West, Valerie Faulkner, and Emily Elrod
In this editorial, we provide suggestions for authors who are preparing a manuscript for the Mathematics Teacher Educator journal that is based on a dissertation. We recommend that authors begin by examining their findings and identifying a focus that addresses a shared problem of practice for mathematics teacher educators. Authors should become familiar with the journal by reading editorials and related articles published in the journal. Finally, the Writing Tool can serve as a guide for preparing an outline for the manuscript, which can be shared with the editors and colleagues for feedback.
Linda L. Cooper
Growing Problem Solvers provides four original, related, classroom-ready mathematical tasks, one for each grade band. Together, these tasks illustrate the trajectory of learners’ growth as problem solvers across their years of school mathematics.
