Preparing Secondary Mathematics Teachers for Teaching Algebra in the Age of Common Core Standards

It is critically important that “the nation’s mathematics teachers have the knowledge, skills, and dispositions needed to provide students with a mathematics education that ensures that hjgh school mathematics graduates are college- and career-ready as envisioned in the Common Core State Standards in Mathematics” (Conference Board of the Mathematical Sciences [CBMS], 2012) Hence, a fundamental question for teacher education is “What opportunities are secondary mathematics teacher preparation programs in the U.S. providing pre-service teachers [PSTs] to learn the mathematics described in the Common Core and in recent recommendations such as CBMS (2012)?” The data we will discuss in this session come from a recent survey of 132 secondary mathematics teacher education programs in the U.S. Because of the importance of algebra as both a foundation for higher mathematics and as a gatekeeper to college courses and many careers, our survey focused on opportunities to learn about algebra, teaching algebra, issues in equity in learning algebra, and the functions and modeling aspects of the CCSS-M.