By Audrey Malagon

In the midst of a global pandemic and school shutdowns, the value of K-12 teaching became more apparent than ever before. But does the mathematical community adequately value applications of the undergraduate mathematics core curriculum to high school teaching? Does fostering the Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching take a backseat to pushing for applications to business and other STEM fields? Based on recommendations from the 2012 CBMS Mathematical Education of Teachers II, the MAA’s META Math project seeks to elevate content relevant to secondary teaching. The project develops curricular materials for university math courses that connect undergraduate math content to the content of secondary mathematics, thereby deepening understanding for both pre-service teachers and all math majors of the content taught in grades 7-12. Here project PI Doug Ensley of Shippensburg University tells us about the project.

Tell us about how you got the idea for this project, and what you think helped strengthen your proposal.

​This project is based on recommendations from the 2012 CBMS Mathematical Education of Teachers II (MET II) report, calling for a future in which secondary school students engage in substantive mathematical inquiry, solve non-routine problems, and make deep mathematical connections. It represents a partnership bringing together curriculum developers and mathematics education researchers. Working under the umbrella of the MAA member community and communication network strengthened our proposal.

Does the project only focus on math majors planning to become high school teachers?

The most distinguishing feature of our curricular material is that it is designed for all undergraduates (not just pre-service teachers) in a given core course. That is, we focus on materials beneficial to all students in a course but also acknowledge (and even celebrate) the future teachers in the class. We believe that all students benefit from activities that connect undergraduate math content to content learned in grades 7-12. After all, secondary mathematics is a common experience for all undergraduates.

What have you learned so far in this project? What’s the biggest challenge you’ve faced?

We’ve learned that there are a lot of ways to make connections between undergraduate mathematics and statistics courses and the mathematics taught in middle and high schools. We have had a lot of fun creating class materials and assignments that help undergraduates practice how to help someone else understand mathematics, while still learning new mathematics content themselves. The biggest challenge has been writing mathematics tasks that feature human beings wrestling with learning mathematics content.

How can mathematics faculty access the materials you’ve developed?

We published some of the content for discrete mathematics and abstract algebra courses in PRIMUS (https://doi.org/10.1080/10511970.2021.1905120; https://doi.org/10.1080/10511970.2021.1912230)

Members of the MAA can also access summaries of our materials through MAA Connect, "META Lessons on the Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching." To request access to other META Math classroom materials, they can fill out the form at maa.org/meta-math

Tell us about the people involved in the project.

The community of mathematicians who are involved in this project ranges from those designing the materials, to field testers who tried initial versions of the materials and talked with us about them, to those who have come to talks and workshops to discuss with others what else they have tried and what might work. The most exciting thing has been to realize how many mathematicians are eager to teach their undergraduate courses in a way that provides meaningful and robust preparation for the future teachers who are in the courses.

What larger impact do you envision from this project?

In addition to improving curriculum for the benefit of improving preparation of tomorrow's mathematics teachers, we believe our approach can potentially change the attitude about future teachers among mathematicians who teach these core undergraduate courses. We are also seeing in our research data that this project has the potential to motivate instructors to move their instructional model toward more active-learning pedagogies.

One of the best things about working on a project like this, with an aim towards faculty development, is how far downstream the effects can persist. We are working with mathematics faculty, and they in turn are working with their own undergraduates, and those undergraduates who become teachers then work with their own classrooms of school students. We all realized how much the aims of the project resonate with faculty across the country when we wrote a short article for the MAA Focus (Let Us Treat Teaching as a Legitimate Application of College Mathematics) in 2019. The response from colleagues was so positive – that was when we knew we were really on to something.

Learn more about NSF DUE #1726624

Full Project Name: The Mathematical Education of Teachers as an Application of Undergraduate Mathematics (META Math)

Abstract Link: NSF Award Search: Award # 1726624 - The Mathematical Education of Teachers as an Application of Undergraduate Mathematics (META Math)

Project Contact: Doug Ensley, DEEnsley@ship.edu

*Responses in this blog were edited for length and clarity.