Transitioning Secondary to Tertiary Educators' Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching

This project investigates the significance of Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching (MKT) in an understudied population of instructors who fall between traditional divisions of high school and college teaching. Past research has typically assumed that an instructor is either a high school or college instructor, but not both. Degree and certification programs also make this assumption.

However, many educators teach both secondary (high school) and tertiary (college) classes throughout the course of their careers, sometimes simultaneously. This project highlights educators in the secondary-to-tertiary (S2T) transition with implications for teaching practices in both settings.

The goals of this project are to study and better support these S2T math educators by using ideas of MKT. MKT includes various domains of math educator knowledge such as knowledge of math content, connections between topics across courses, and knowledge of students, teaching, and curriculum. In phase one, a qualitative study will compare and contrast the priorities of individuals who have expertise in both secondary and tertiary education.

In phase two, the expert perspectives will be embedded in a capstone course for a master’s degree program targeting S2T educators. A second round of data collection and analysis will explore the possible impacts on teacher knowledge for the target population. This project initiates a research trajectory that can inform the math education community about the S2T transition for educators, part-time and dual-enrollment faculty, community college instructors, teacher education, distance or online education, and adult education.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.