What to Write - Mathematics Teacher Educator
MTE Calls
Elevating
Teacher Voice - Special Call for Invited Manuscripts
This first-of-its-kind special call
for invited manuscripts to MTE is seeking invited manuscripts for early 2024
publication that describe preservice or practicing teacher professional
learning opportunities and elevate teacher voice.
Perspectives on Practice
Perspectives on Practice, a new article format, debuted in the September 2022 issue. Perspectives on Practice articles showcase innovations in a previously published MTE article and describe how the scholarly work was interpreted, iterated, or improved on in practice.
Submission Types
The mission of the online journal Mathematics Teacher Educator (MTE) is to contribute to building a professional knowledge base for mathematics teacher educators that stems from, develops, and strengthens practitioner knowledge. The journal provides a forum
for sharing practitioner knowledge related to the preparation and support of teachers of mathematics as well as for verifying and improving that knowledge over time. The journal is thus a tool that uses the personal knowledge that mathematics educators gain from their practice to build a trustworthy knowledge
base that can be shared with the profession.
Therefore, all manuscripts should be crafted in a manner that makes the scholarly nature of the work apparent. Toward that end, manuscripts should contain a description of the problem or issue of mathematics teacher education that is addressed, the
methods/interventions/tools that were used, the means by which these methods/interventions/tools and their results were studied and documented, and the application of the results to practice (both the authors’ practice and the larger community).
The nature of evidence in a practitioner journal is different from that in a research journal, but evidence is still critically important to ensuring the scholarly nature of the journal. Thus, authors must go beyond simply describing innovations to providing
evidence of their effectiveness. Note that effectiveness implies that something is better and not just different as a result of the innovation. In addition, authors should make explicit the specific contribution to our knowledge. Findings should be reported with enough warrants to allow the
construction or justification of recommendations for policy and practice.
Submissions to MTE should correspond to one of five manuscript types. The first three manuscript types describe methods, interventions, or tools that were used. The fourth manuscript type describes theoretical perspectives related to mathematics teacher
education. The fifth manuscript type, Perspectives on Practice, describes the implementation of a method, intervention, or tool described in a previously published MTE article. (Please see the
call for Perspectives on Practices submission for information on which previously published articles are currently eligible.).
Methods,
Interventions, or Tools: Teacher Focus
Manuscripts that describe effective
ways of influencing teachers’ knowledge, practices, or beliefs should include a description of activities, tasks, or materials (e.g., cases, articles, software) that are used by a teacher educator to influence prospective and/or practicing teachers in some way. These manuscripts would
include a rationale for the intervention, a careful description of the intervention, documentation of evidence of the impact of the intervention (e.g., classroom transcript, teacher work, interview data, assessment results), a discussion of how this intervention might be used by others, and a clear
statement of the contribution to the mathematics teacher education knowledge base. Evidence for this category of manuscript should be at the level of the teachers involved in the work. The discussion of the implications for other MTEs should focus on the impact on teachers’ knowledge, practices, or beliefs.
(Limit: 25 pages or 6250 words)
Methods,
Interventions, or Tools: Framework Focus
Manuscripts that describe the use of broadly applicable tools and frameworks in mathematics teacher
education should describe tools and frameworks that are generally portable across a range of settings (e.g., grade level, preservice/in-service) and are not idiosyncratic to the instructor. Again, such manuscripts would include a careful description of the tool, what it is designed to capture/assess, its use
(including modifications to the tool, changes in setting, etc., if this tool has been discussed previously in the literature), and evidence of the effectiveness of the tool, including reliability and validity (if appropriate). The constructs measured by the tool should be grounded in the literature, and
the manuscript should include an explanation of how to interpret the results of the data captured with the tool. Although space might not permit the inclusion of the tool in its entirety in the manuscript, it could be made available online for other professionals to use, modify, enhance, and study. Examples of
such tools might include a classroom observation protocol, a task analysis framework, a textbook analysis tool, assessment tasks, or framework for an entire teacher education program. Evidence for this category of manuscript should include both the teacher level and the course or professional learning
opportunity level. The discussion of the implications for other MTEs should include attention to the impact on teachers and to the broader contexts of mathematics teacher education.
(Limit: 25 pages or 6250 words)
Methods,
Interventions, or Tools: Policy or Program Focus
Manuscripts that address policy or programmatic issues should describe a problem of practice within mathematics teacher education that is addressed through changes to the nature or structure of a mathematics teacher education program or policies that govern mathematics teacher education. These manuscripts would
articulate the issue and describe the impact it has on mathematics teacher education, both at the level of the author’s practice and the larger program, context, or community. The manuscript should describe the context of the program or community that the changes impact (for example, a brief history of a
teacher preparation program or an accounting of prior state policies governing certification). The manuscript should go beyond simply describing the issue to illuminating the trade-offs that would result from alternative solutions to the issue. For instance, an author might report the results of a survey of capstone
courses for secondary majors with an analysis of the pros and cons of different models and a suggestion for a new model. Similarly, an author might elaborate on different models for elementary mathematics specialists in schools and note limitations and advantages of each model, providing examples from practice
where available. With respect to policies, an author might review the literature on school practices with respect to equity and diversity and provide evidence of the impact of these various practices on mathematics teacher education. Additionally, the manuscript might describe effective ways of challenging such
effects. Evidence for this category of manuscripts should include the teacher level and the program or policy level, which may include the impact of the change on a community of mathematics teacher educators. The discussion of the implications for other MTEs should discuss how the changes might be implemented
in other program or policy contexts.
(Limit: 25 pages or 6250 words)
Theoretical
Perspectives on Mathematics Teacher Education
Manuscripts that address theoretical perspectives should identify a theoretical framework or perspective that applies to some aspect of mathematics teacher education. For a theoretical manuscript, the theoretical idea need not have been implemented in practice at the time of writing. Such a manuscript should
describe the problem of practice that the theoretical idea is designed to address and provide a clear description of how the use of the theoretical idea is likely to materially address the problem of practice. In this way, the manuscript should clearly describe how the theoretical idea contributes to the
knowledge base for mathematics teacher education, as well as providing a clear path for how such a theoretical idea might be used by mathematics teacher educators in practice. For example, an author might describe a theoretical framework for understanding mathematics teacher educator learning and provide
examples from their own practice or the practice of others that describes the different categories of learning or knowledge. An author might draw on the literature related to anti-racist teaching and posit a framework for integrating and assessing the impact of anti-racist mathematics teacher
education work in the context of teacher preparation. The discussion of the implications for other MTEs should describe ways in which the framework could be used in practice.
(Limit: 25 pages or 6250 words)
Perspectives on
Practice
A Perspectives on Practice manuscript focuses on an innovation in a previously-published MTE article and describes how it was interpreted, iterated, or improved in practice. The manuscript should also provide some insights into how the changes during the enactment influenced evidence of
learning, using the evidence of learning in the original article as a foundation. For example, a mathematics teacher educator might adapt an innovation originally published as a methods activity in a preservice context into a professional learning community with practicing teachers, identify how
the innovation was adapted to that context, and provide a few brief insights into the nature of teacher learning and engagement. As another example, a mathematics teacher educator might implement an innovation described in an MTE article with a group of teachers who collectively adapted the activity to
reflect their sociocultural context. The Perspectives in Practice manuscript could describe the adaptations made to suit the context and share teacher reflections on their engagement in the work. Perspectives on Practice manuscripts are limited in the source articles upon which they may draw; please
see the call for the current list of eligible articles.
(Limit: 4 pages)
Writing Tools
Manuscripts should be no longer than 25 pages of text or 6,250 words (exclusive of references) with the exception of Perspectives on Practice manuscripts, which are limited to 4 pages. For ease of reading by reviewers, all figures and tables should be embedded in the correct locations
in the text. All manuscripts should be formatted according to the guidelines of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (7th edition). Manuscripts not conforming to these specifications may be returned without review. Please submit manuscripts using the online manuscript submission and review system.
Because MTE is published in electronic format, we encourage authors to take advantage of the possibilities of this medium by including items such as student work, videos, applets, hyperlinks, and other items that enhance the manuscript. Appropriate
permission for such items must be submitted before such a manuscript will be accepted for publication. In addition, color can be used to the extent that it enhances the submission.
MTE has provided a number of tools over the years to support the development of manuscripts. The
MTE writing tool provides a set of prompts to help you organize your writing in a way that is aligned with the key components of an MTE manuscript. Former editors Sandra Crespo and Kristen Bieda provided an editorial that described the origins and potential uses of the writing tool.
So You Want to Be an MTE Author? A Tool for Writing Your Next MTE Manuscript
Finally, the editors are happy to meet with prospective authors to discuss their ideas.
General Information
MTE uses a double-blind peer review process, is indexed in ISSN, and is available (from January 2013) through JSTOR. The first issue was published in September 2012, with two issues per volume planned for the foreseeable future.
Mathematics
Teacher Educator is a joint publication of the Association of Mathematics Teacher Educators (AMTE) and the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM).
The editor is
Mike Steele, National Science Foundation. The associate editor is
Kate Johnson, Brigham Young University.