Teacher education - why all the societal interest and debate?

NAFADISE with prof. Barbro Grevholm, Agder University, Norway (pt. guest prof. at IND)

Abstract

In many countries mathematical teacher education has been a subject of societal debate and criticism has been expressed. In the seminar I present the problematique of teacher education in mathematics and discuss issues and concerns related to it, trying to understand why there is a problem. A longitudinal study of teacher education in mathematics in Sweden is used as an illustrating example and recent evaluations of teacher education in Denmark, Norway and Sweden serve as sources for finding criticism and problems. A model for teacher education seen as the development of a professional identity is presented and discussed. This leads to the suggestion of solving the problems with teacher education by experiencing it as a life long learning and the development of a professional identity. Questions to be discussed by the audience will be used during the presentation