What to Write - Mathematics Teacher Educator
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 Michael Steele, National Science Foundation. The associate editor is Kate Johnson, Brigham Young University.