Professional Development in Teaching for Mathematics Graduate Students

Abstract

The purpose of this article is twofold: to give a sense of the current lay of the land in the preparation of mathematics graduate student teaching assistants (TAs) and to describe the collegiate mathematics education research base informing the next generation of college mathematics instructor preparation. We anchor discussion in three common types of TA preparation programs, each represented in one of the quotes above. Notably, the first quote represents a sink or swim experience that is becoming rare in US PhD-granting mathematics departments. Preparation of TAs for their instructional roles has blossomed in the last twenty years. The second quote is representative of current practices in many departments. The third quote illustrates the activities in innovative departments that are already implementing best practices suggested by research in collegiate mathematics education: sustained professional growth about teaching and learning.To highlight the challenges and benefits of spending time paying attention to teaching, we provide information from postsecondary and related secondary-level educational research of several types. This includes basic and applied educational research that identifies good instructional practices, examines experiences TAs bring with them to teaching, provides frameworks for the structuring of TA preparation, and gives insight into the kinds of mathematics-specific and teaching-specific knowledge that needs to be developed among TAs. And, once a program for supporting TAs to learn and grow as instructors is put in place, evaluation research explores the implementation of efforts to improve TAs' teaching and the related impacts on undergraduate student learning. We close with promising practices and sketch anticipations for the future of the field of related research.Though not common thirty years ago, today most doctorate-and master's-granting institutions provide some kind of TA preparation for teaching [4a]. The content for this professional development often comes from mathematicians offering their collective wisdom from practical

Supporting Graduate Student Instructors in Calculus

“…Traditionally, mathematics GSIs received little support to grow as teachers, but this trend is beginning to change (Deshler et al, 2015). As this paper highlights, all six GSIs who were contacted were interested in growing as teachers, and some GSIs were able to improve their practices with relatively little support (six one-hour meetings).…”

“…Moreover, GSIs face a number of challenges as they transition into graduate studies (Hauk et al, 2009), exacerbating this lack of training. The development of GSIs is an emerging area of research, with an increasing number of reports published in refereed journals, both in mathematics (Deshler, Hauk, & Speer, 2015;Speer, Murphy, & Gutmann, 2009) and with regards to student-centered teaching in other disciplines (e.g., Miller, Brickman, & Oliver, 2014; Wright, Bergom, & Brooks, 2011). This paper adds to the emerging literature by focusing on the development of student-centered practices in introductory calculus.…”

Navigating a Disciplinary Chasm: The Statistical Perspectives of Graduate Teaching Assistants

“…Several survey studies of GTAs in mathematics, statistics, and biology found that most like the idea of active learning, but few have seen these strategies enacted well in their own courses. Instead, many GTAs are more comfortable enacting transmission-style instruction and computationally-centered worksheets (Deshler et al, 2015;Justice et al, 2017;Pentecost et al, 2012). Without direct experience with constructivist learning environments, GTAs are also more likely to over-emphasize the importance of general aspects of teaching (e.g., lecturing clearly, giving enough practice problems) rather than thinking deeply about the nature of the content itself (DeFranco & McGivney-Burelle, 2001;Gardner & Jones, 2011;Kung & Speer, 2007).…”

The Future of Embodied Design for Mathematics Teaching and Learning

“…In their own research, Richards and Skolits found that teachers were more likely to integrate a new teaching strategy if they understood the educational theory behind the strategy, observed the strategy modeled, related the new strategy to existing teaching practices, and received on-site support as they integrated the new strategy for the first time. Some researchers (Speer et al, 2005(Speer et al, , 2010Deshler et al, 2015) have investigated effectiveness of PD for collegiate instructors, but the research remains minimal in this domain and much of the work is with graduate students. Given the wide range of research demonstrating that embodiment facilitates mathematics learning (Abrahamson, 2009a;Radford et al, 2009;Hall and Nemirovsky, 2012;Schoenfeld, 2016;Oehrtman et al, 2019;Soto-Johnson and Hancock, 2019) and the call for student-centered learning in K-16 mathematics education (Conference Board of the Mathematical Sciences [CBMS], 2016), the time is ripe to educate prospective teachers, in-service teachers, and collegiate instructors regarding embodiment.…”