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Are education systems converging toward a global model of teacher education or do local models tend to predominate in spite of attempts to reform them? How much do global, national, and local cultures shape and condition future teachers’ opportunities to learn to teach? How do these opportunities influence teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge? In this chapter we use data from the IEA’s first study of the effectiveness of pre-service teacher education in order to investigate teacher education policy, program structure, and outcomes. Using multilevel modeling we found that across countries individual characteristics have a similar and powerful influence on what future teachers come to know at the end of their pre-service programs. The effects of teacher education curriculum on future teachers’ mathematics pedagogical content knowledge reaffirm the prevalence of local cultures on the implementation of an increasingly globalized ideal. We conclude that while the provision of teacher education shares many common features in goals and structure across countries, it is strongly influenced by local conditions and norms, and by cultural notions of the knowledge that is considered essential – framing how quality is to be defined and operationalized – when learning to teach.

Flipped classroom approaches (FCA) are an educational innovation that could increase students' learning outcomes in, and their enjoyment of, mathematics or STEM education. To integrate FCA into education sustainably, professional teacher development (PTD) is a promising tool. The research aim is to explore which aspects should be considered when developing and implementing professional mathematics or STEM teacher development for flipped approaches.

A total of 20 expert interviews were conducted and analysed according to a synthesis of grounded theory approaches and qualitative interview study principles.

Evaluating the interview data indicates that the characteristics of different teacher types in PTD, learning activities in PTD and the DSE model derived in this study could be vital elements in professional mathematics or STEM teacher development for flipped approaches.

Evaluating the interview data indicates that the characteristics of different teacher types in PTD, learning activities in PTD and the DSE model derived in this study could be vital elements in professional mathematics or STEM teacher development for flipped approaches.

The Global Mathematics Education Special Interest Group (SIG) of the Comparative and International Education Society (CIES) provides a forum for researchers and practitioners from around the world to discuss theory, practices, and techniques for mathematics learning from early childhood to tertiary education. Teacher education and professional development is a significant focus of the SIG’s conversations. This chapter discusses and current and future impact of CIE research on teacher education and professional development in global mathematics. A range of factors can undermine students’ performance in mathematics. In many contexts, teacher shortages result in underqualified teachers; teachers trained in other subjects are assigned to teach mathematics; or teacher training lacks adequate focus on teaching mathematics for understanding. While these factors exist in many contexts, they are most acute in low-income countries and communities. Mathematics is widely recognized as a mechanism for economic growth, at individual and system levels. However, low-income countries and marginalized populations perform poorly in cross-national assessments. As a result, lower-performing countries may emulate policy and practice of the higher-performing countries. In such cases there is a risk of superficial “fixes” that ignore contextual factors. There are ways to reduce such risks by combining such assessments with more contextual studies, or by using cross-national assessments as catalysts for examining what is happening locally. Looking forward, there is reason for optimism about the recognition of the importance of early-grade numeracy; recognition of the intersections of mathematics, culture, and language; and potential for reaching across CIE areas and methodologies to develop a more measured and nuanced view of assessment results.

This study aimed to determine the expectations of students from mathematics teachers in the planning phase of lesson study (LS) in mathematics classrooms.

This study reported only a part of large-scale action research. The participants were Grade 8 students selected by the convenience sampling method. The data were obtained through open-ended questions. The content analysis method was used to analyze the data.

Four categories emerged: connection, technology-supported teaching, use of concrete materials, practice, and teacher behavior and teaching style.

This study reveals how students in a different culture and education system, such as Türkiye, want to learn mathematics in the LS process of Japanese origin. It also gives some important clues for applying LS in a different culture.

This study may attract the attention of educational stakeholders who want to implement LS in mathematics classrooms by considering student perspectives.

Due to the nature of LS, this study may emphasize teacher–student and teacher–teacher interactions. Thus, it can draw attention to the importance of social learning environments where students take responsibility and interact.

This study emphasizes the importance of listening to student voices in LS. Some ideas about mathematics teaching in Turkey should also be given. Finally, it can provide a good basis for understanding and comparing LS practices in different cultures and understandings.

Amidst a worldwide concern with teacher quality, recent teacher reforms often focus on how to certify teachers, how to evaluate teachers, how to recruit the best and brightest people to be teachers, and how to fire bad teachers. The political discourse of these policy reforms oftentimes depicts teachers as largely inactive transmitters of knowledge and does not recognize the agency they have in affecting standards. Yet, such a narrow framework may suppress teacher pedagogy, practices, and also teacher beliefs. In this chapter, we seek to understand the extent that two types of math teacher beliefs – traditional and constructivist orientations – are related to national cultural factors. In doing so, we test both “culturist” and “neo-institutional” hypotheses by observing how those beliefs vary across different nations.

This chapter explores the difference in two orientations – didaktik and curriculum – and examines how these differing stances relate to teachers’ instructional practice, engagement with professional development opportunities, and lesson design. A didaktik orientation influences much of the Nordic and Germanic countries, while a curriculum orientation is widespread in Commonwealth of Nations and the United States. This chapter explores the differences between these two theories of learning and teaching. More than just different theories of teaching and learning, we argue these theories shape how we see the world (i.e., objectified vs. subjectified) and manifest themselves in distinctive understandings of schools’ purpose, the type of learning engaged therein, and how people learn. Consequently, these orientations affect the teacher’s role, the qualifications necessary to teach, as well as other aspects of teacher quality such as instructional methods, and types of professional development.

When designing learning environments in primary teacher education, there is an attempt to represent real teaching practice in an authentic way to prospective teachers. When constructing these environments, teacher educators have to consider how to best motivate the student teacher, identifying the most relevant practice-based principles and the ways in which the theory and practice can be bridged. There are other considerations as well. For example, in the Netherlands, as in some other countries, teacher education is changing drastically. Controversial teacher education curricula, consisting of primary school subjects originated after more than one hundred years of reflection on the subject matter of primary education and the ways teachers have taught, have been replaced by curricula merely intended to improve the general professionalization of the prospective teacher, neglecting the school subjects. More specifically, the new objective is to adequately prepare students to become competent beginning teachers.

There has been a resurgence of interest in comparative and international research on teacher education that has been driven, in large part, by the emergence over the past two decades of comprehensive international studies of student achievement supported by (1) the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) and (2) the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA), Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), and Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS). Widely published country rankings that set benchmarks for student achievement suggest the importance of understanding more fully what specific characteristics set highly ranked countries apart, especially quality of teaching and teacher education.

Recent literature on comparative and international teacher education is reviewed, focusing on special issues of Prospects (Vol. 42, March 2012, “Internationalization of Teacher Education”), sponsored by the UNESCO International Bureau of Education (IBE) in Geneva, Switzerland, and the International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education (Vol. 11, August 2013, “International Perspectives on Mathematics and Science Teacher Education for the Future”), sponsored by the National Science Council of Taiwan.

A conceptual framework for describing the complexity of teacher education in comparative and international context is presented, adapting an approach used for understanding educational change and reform in emerging democracies. The chapter concludes with a discussion of theoretical perspectives that have been applied to teacher education in comparative and international education with recommendations for new directions that might inform scholarly understanding as well as practice.

This chapter outlines the importance of enhancement courses, particularly in mathematics, to the preservice landscape in England. These programs occur after an individual has completed a degree but before admittance to preservice teacher education. The pedagogies used in these programs are characterized as both pedagogies of teacher preparation and of selection for preservice. The learning that takes place in these programs is an under-researched area. The chapter addresses that issue by specifying, analyzing, and justifying the pedagogies of teacher preparation deployed in the context of one mathematics enhancement course (MEC). We draw on international research to argue that there is a specific body of knowledge for teaching their subject area, which all teachers need to generate. In terms of empirical work and personal scholarship, the chapter is based primarily on the scholarship and practice of the first author, Clarke, between 2008 and 2014. We present an exemplar of teaching, following the principles of the pedagogies of preparation in place for the MEC. These pedagogies aim to develop for student teachers a profound or “relational understanding” of fundamental mathematics, aiming for the re-experiencing and re-construction of an aspect of mathematics, which they first learned as young grade school students. We argue that a distinctive form of mathematical knowledge is thus produced in and through the teaching processes. In the final part of the chapter, we outline the conditions in which these pedagogies might be adopted in other contexts, arguing that they represent good practice in teaching subject knowledge in all teacher education programs.

This study aims to describe the feasibility of designing and fostering pre-service teacher inquiry at the intersection of community and disciplinary engagement. Mapping My Math (MMM), a game-based and mobile learning activity, guided pre-service teachers in playfully exploring mathematics featured in the everyday activities of people and places and creatively representing this inquiry with digital media.

This study draws from design-based research that examined the role of place, digital media and mobility in mathematics teacher education. Design narrative methods describe how MMM was created, implemented and refined to support disciplinary inquiry across settings given the evolution of tools, activities and practices. The study and design narrative address the following question: How can game-based and mobile learning be designed to support pre-service teachers’ disciplinary inquiry of everyday mathematics?

Findings shared in this study’s design narrative attend to the quality of pre-service teachers’ inquiry-as-play, or expressive mobility situated amonglearners’ social and material relations, disciplinary concepts and the built environment.

Implications from this study concern the role of mobile learning in mathematics teacher education to connect school, community and online settings; the potential of gameful design to impact pre-service teacher learning across settings; and the importance of fostering disciplinary inquiry whereby pre-service teachers can “navigate” their own learning.

Game-based and mobile learning designs, like MMM, can create the conditions for cross-setting mobility as generative of inquiry-as-play in mathematics teacher education. MMM encouraged pre-service teachers to playfully leverage disciplinary practices that shaped new relationships with mathematics, their city and the mathematics of place and community.