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Advanced Mathematics for Secondary School Teachers: Mathematicians’ Perspective

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Abstract

In this paper, we examine mathematicians’ views on the value of advanced mathematics for secondary mathematics teachers. The data comprise semi-structured interviews with 24 mathematicians from 10 universities. The findings indicate that the value of advanced mathematics courses for prospective secondary mathematics teachers lies in their potential to offer connections across mathematical domains, mathematical experience for the development of problem-solving abilities, and increased epistemological awareness of the subject. Additionally, mathematicians’ examples that connect advanced and school mathematics are presented and discussed. While the mathematicians provided rich examples of such connections, we noted that such examples were relatively scarce and accordingly sought possible explanations in the discussion of the findings.

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  1. In Europe, soccer and football are referred to as football and American football, respectively.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Dr. Elias Brettler for his thoughtful and helpful suggestions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Education, Simon Fraser University, 8888 University Dr, Burnaby, British Columbia, V5A 1S6, Canada

    Xiaoheng Yan & Rina Zazkis

  2. Mathematics Education Unit, Department of Mathematics, Faculty of Science, The University of Auckland, 38 Princes St., Auckland Central, Auckland, 1010, New Zealand

    Ofer Marmur

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  1. Xiaoheng Yan
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Correspondence to Xiaoheng Yan.

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Yan, X., Marmur, O. & Zazkis, R. Advanced Mathematics for Secondary School Teachers: Mathematicians’ Perspective. Int J of Sci and Math Educ 20, 553–573 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10763-020-10146-x

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