Teacher Education Across Borders
Study seeks to understand what works and why when it comes to preparing mathematics educators.

Michigan State University has been selected as one of two international research centers for a study that will analyze how much teacher preparation policies, programs, and practices across the world lead to developing effective mathematics teachers.

The multimillion dollar study, known as Teacher Education and Development Study–Mathematics (teds-m), involves more than 20 countries and focuses on the teaching of mathematics at the primary and secondary level, from first to eighth grades in the United States.

“This study is about the importance of educating teachers and understanding how they learn to teach mathematics,” said Associate Professor Maria Teresa Tatto, who serves as principal investigator on the project along with Assistant Dean Jack Schwille and Sharon Senk, professor of mathematics education in the College of Natural Science. “The study is breaking new ground in terms of research in teacher education and the scale of the project. We simply haven’t been able to do this kind of comparative work in teacher education. In our study, we are going to be able to actually go into higher education institutions to see what opportunities to learn prospective teachers of mathematics are afforded. And we will be able to compare those learning opportunities and policies across many countries.

“It is an incredible opportunity to find out whether what students learn in teacher education programs leads to more effective teaching of mathematics.”

As part of the study, which is sponsored by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (iea), a consortium of research institutions in 60 countries, researchers from throughout the world will analyze policies governing mathematics teachers, including such things as certification. In addition, researchers will examine curricula in teacher education. Finally, researchers will also analyze the intended outcomes of teacher education programs and whether those goals were achieved.

Each country has established its own national research center, which is responsible for carrying out the analysis and surveys. Tatto said MSU already has a questionnaire in place and other protocols will be developed to insure that the data gathered is comparable across countries. MSU’s partner in coordinating the project is the Australian Council for Educational Research.

Tatto, Schwille, and Senk said they hope the findings will have plenty of policy implications for all of the countries in the study, including the United States. For that reason, the study will include a financial breakdown of the costs of making changes to country’s system of preparing math teachers.

In the United States, for example, there could be a detailed discussion of how much it would cost to prepare an American mathematics teacher to the level of some of the most highly effective math educators from countries in the study.

“Pointing out that teacher education in a given country should change in this way or that is fine, but it doesn’t mean a lot without addressing the costs,” Tatto said. “If a policy is not working and you propose a policy that will work better, then you need to be clear about the fact that there are costs associated with abandoning the old system and costs associated with adopting a new program.

“We truly intend for the study to have a policy affect and to do that we have to provide that cost analysis.”