Practising Mathematics Teacher Education: Expanding The Realm of Possibilities

It is often said that student teachers’ underlying beliefs of what mathematics consists of and how it should be taught are restricted in two ways. On the one hand, future elementary teachers in general use only weak mathematical conceptions, which often do not help them to realise their educational ambitions. On a general educational level, many of these students advocate discovery learning and collective problem solving, but when it comes down to the mathematical activities that have to be prepared, their experience of “traditional” school mathematics is of little help. On the other hand, future (higher) secondary teachers mostly are very well prepared with respect to formal academic mathematics when entering mathematics education programmes, either because they have already passed a mathematical formation at university or because their teacher education programmes emphasise the study of academic mathematics and not of educational or didactical modules