Tasks: a fitting end to an era

Abstract

This issue of JMTE is special in a number of ways. The most obvious is that it forms a triple ‘‘special’’ issue of the journal with guest editors. The second is that it marks a first decade of JMTE as it completes the tenth volume of the journal. And thirdly, it concludes an editorial era of 6 years as the current editorial team hands over to a new team for Volume 11. To start with the second of these points, JMTE is 10. It began in 1998 published by Kluwer and with Tom Cooney as founding editor. Tom took it through its first four volumes establishing the journal as a serious scholarly work in Mathematics Teacher Education. During Tom’s editorship the journal increased from the original three issues a year to four with Volume 4 in 2001. The new editorial team (Barbara Jaworski, Konrad Krainer, Peter Sullivan and Terry Wood) continued to produce four issues a year until 2005. During this time, publication was taken over by Springer. It was a time when the journal saw a considerable expansion in terms of the number of papers received, Springer encouraged us to increase the number of issues per year to six and we added a new editor to the team (Dina Tirosh). During this time, acceptance rate for papers submitted has remained around 20%, a little lower more recently, which reflects the demands JMTE makes on the quality of papers accepted. This first decade of JMTE has been one of the establishing identity and to some extent of seeking innovation, particularly in considering the special issues. Editors have encouraged colleagues around the world to suggest special issues that might be of interest to readers. In Volume 6, Konrad Krainer edited a special issue on Community in Mathematics Teacher Education, drawing on papers that were submitted as part of the normal process. In Volume 9, Heinz Steinbring and Petra Scherer were guest editors for a special issue on Relating Theory and Practice in Mathematics Teacher Education, drawing from the work of a group at the European Conference CERME 4. The current triple issue of JMTE, therefore, is JMTE’s third special issue and the first for which a call for papers was distributed. Guest editors Orit Zaslavsky, Anne Watson and John Mason proposed a double issue on Tasks in Mathematics Teacher Education. Following agreement with the editorial