Abstract
The discrepancy between school and academic mathematics as well as the resulting problems for secondary mathematics teachers’ content knowledge (CK) have been well known since Felix Klein pointed out the problem of so-called double discontinuity. However, even today, the field of mathematics education has no clear answer to the question as to what kind of profession-specific CK secondary mathematics teachers need and should be taught during the course of their teacher education. Hence, a model of professional CK for teaching secondary mathematics is required which takes into account the discrepancy between the academic mathematics that teachers learn at university and the school mathematics they teach in school. In order to characterize such a profession-specific CK, this theoretical paper traces and integrates different approaches to bridge this gap. Consequently, a construct called school-related content knowledge (SRCK) is introduced, which describes a profession-specific CK for teaching secondary mathematics concerning interrelations between academic and school mathematics. The conceptualization of this construct encompasses three facets that are illustrated by means of a corresponding operationalization. The distinction of SRCK from the construct of specialized content knowledge is discussed, as are emerging research questions.
Highlights
What kind of content knowledge (CK) do secondary mathematics teachers need? How can a profession-specific mathematical CK be characterized? These questions are highly relevant for the design of mathematics teacher education programs as well as for investigating teachers’ professional knowledge
5 Toward a Comprehensive Conceptualization of Secondary Teachers’ Mathematical Content Knowledge. Informed by these early reflections on the profession of mathematics teachers and the relation between academic and school mathematics, we argue that secondary mathematics teachers need a specific kind of mathematical CK to make connections between academic and school mathematics
In some German states (e. g., Bavaria) the curricula locate the introduction of the number π not in grade 9 or 10 after the mathematical requirements have been treated, but already in grade 7, in the context of the topic “proportionality.” From the perspective of academic mathematics, this leads to problems that should be recognized by secondary teachers
Summary
What kind of content knowledge (CK) do secondary mathematics teachers need? These questions are highly relevant for the design of mathematics teacher education programs as well as for investigating teachers’ professional knowledge. The goal of inquiry from this perspective is to establish a theoretically argued position—in this case regarding the question as to what kind of profession-specific CK secondary teachers need, i. Our main goal was to empirically investigate a construct of profession-specific CK of secondary mathematics teachers While Heinze et al (2016) took mainly the stance of the empirical scientist tradition on conceptualizing discipline-specific teacher knowledge, the aim of this article is to outline the theoretical argumentation that leads to the proposed con-. Struct school-related content knowledge (SRCK) as a specific mathematical CK that secondary mathematics teachers need. We illustrate an operationalization of SRCK by possible sample items, and its distinction from the well-known construct specialized content knowledge (e. g., Ball et al 2008) will be discussed
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