Sandy Schuck – författare

In this book, internationally recognised scholars and practitioners synthesise current practice and research developments in the area of mathematics teacher education and mathematics education. The book’s two sections examine the role and significance of collaborations and critical friends in the self-study of mathematics teaching and teacher education; and the emerging conflicts, dilemmas and incongruities arising from the study of mathematics education practices. The book considers the insights gained from self-analysis regarding the practitioner themselves, as well as their pedagogical content, students and approaches. The contributions highlight the complexity, characteristics and features of mathematics education.

The chapters reveal nuances in teaching and learning that are of particular relevance in mathematics education. In addition, the book contains ideas and suggestions on how to enhance the teaching of mathematical content to pre-service teachers. Accordingly, thebook appeals to a wide audience of educators—including education academics, teachers, student teachers and researchers. As teacher educators involved in mathematics education, reflection on practice and engagement in practitioner research is becoming increasingly important in our efforts to enhance our teaching. Teachers and student teachers also gain from the insights arising from such reflection. The knowledge and experience encapsulated in this book provides much for the mathematics education community to build on.

The experiences of the first years of new teachers’ professional lives are critical to their decisions about embracing or leaving the teaching profession. Writ large, these experiences have the potential to either underpin or undermine the growth and development of the teaching profession. This book offers a research-based account of beginning teachers’ experiences, told from their own perspectives and often in their own words.

Beginning Teaching: Stories from the Classroom provides valuable source material to inform teacher education practices. The authors draw on more than 20 years of research on the professional learning, retention and attrition of beginning teachers to provide evocative illustrations of the challenges and successes that occur in the early years of teaching. The compelling and coherent narratives will appeal not only to student and graduate teachers but also to program designers, coaches and senior managers in schools. Above all, the book speaks to teacher educators in the hope that the experiences discussed here will suggest ways of supporting student teachers to grow and flourish once they launch their careers in the profession.

 These evocative stories express beginning teachers’ anguish and elation and also provide testimony to their resilience and perseverance in an altruistic profession. The analysis and interpretation of their stories will challenge and uplift; inspire and shame; give cause for celebration and melancholy; generate empathy and provoke introspection. Above all else, these stories call for change.

This book discusses the use of futures methodologies to examine and critique teacher education and investigate drivers of change in teacher education contexts, providing readers with futures tools that they can use to explore curricula and pedagogies.  It explains futures methods, including scenario development and backcasting, and illustrates them with examples of research in science, technology and mathematics education contexts. 

By allowing the long-term influence of current trends to be considered and providing an opportunity to reflect on the present and imagine the future, scenarios provoke discussion on the directions that teacher education might take now. The book offers insights into the possibilities that might exist for teacher education futures and into how scenario building and planning can be used to inform debates about the present. Further, it suggests ways in which readers can influence the future of teacher education through understanding the drivers of change.