Introduction: Exploring different dimensions of teacher education programs in the TEDS-M study

Abstract

This chapter provides an introduction to Part I of the book, which focuses on examining the characteristics of teacher education programs that participated in the Teacher Education and Development Study in Mathematics (TEDS-M), a cross-national study of teacher education programs that prepare future primary and secondary mathematics teachers. The study collected institutional data from 751 programs in 17 countries. In this introduction to Part I, we provide an overview of the characteristics of the teacher education programs studied and of the teacher educators within them, the methods of TEDS-M data collection, and the challenges encountered when collecting program-level data. The overview is followed by an introduction to the chapters in Part I, which explore different aspects of the participating programs. The first chapter looks at the types of strategies used in the pursuit of program quality and their relationship with programs' outcomes. The following chapter explores the characteristics of the curriculum of mathematics teacher education in programs preparing primary and secondary teachers in the U.S. The penultimate chapter looks at the extent to which teacher education programs are designed to educate diverse populations, and what opportunities are provided to future teachers to learn how to effectively teach diverse groups of students. The last chapter of Part I investigates the views of teacher educators about mathematics teaching and how these are reflected in the views of their future teachers.