Aims

The topic study group on pre-service mathematical education of teachers is dedicated to sharing and discussing of significant new trends and development in research and practice about the various kinds of education of pre-service mathematics teachers and of pre-service primary teachers who teach mathematics and are trained as generalists. It aims to provide both an overview of the current state-of-the-art as well as outstanding recent research reports from an international perspective. The group will discuss research experiences with different practices of pre-service mathematical education of (mathematics) teachers throughout the world, i.e. similarities and differences concerning the formal mathematical education of teachers, types and routes of teacher education, curricula of (mathematics) teacher education, facets of knowledge and differences in their achievements and beliefs about the nature of their training, and a variety of factors that influence these differences.

Outline 
TSG 26 will collect, compare and discuss research experiences with different practices of pre-service mathematical education of teachers throughout the world. It is important to discuss the similarities and differences of the educational routes of such education and its way of certification or licensure examination for teachers all over the world as well as a variety of factors that influence the number and the type of teaching adaptations created by pre-service teacher educators. Being aware of the possible ambiguity of the name of the topic, we define the topic of this TSG to cover activities that take place during the mathematical education and training of future (mathematics) teachers either at universities or special institutions.

Scope of the Topic Study Group  
TSG 26 is dedicated to sharing and discussing of significant new trends and development in research and practice about the mathematical education and training of pre-service teachers. It aims to provide both an overview of the current state-of-the-art as well as outstanding recent research reports and promising practices from an international perspective.
In order to provide a preliminary orientation to the field of study, some distinctions might be drawn. Above all, there seems to be substantial differences between the mathematical education of elementary and secondary mathematics teachers. Other differences relate to forms and sites, to contents and methods, and to agents and aims:

• Organizational forms: Organization of mathematics and mathematics education as consecutive or integrated (or concurrent) components of the pre-service education of mathematics teachers.
• Sites: Traditional universities, teacher universities, teacher education colleges or in- school-education as the providers of the mathematical education of teachers.
• Contents: What kind of mathematics is taught and learned? What kind of pedagogical content knowledge or mathematics didactical knowledge is taught and learned? How is the integration with pedagogical knowledge structured? Is the focus on academic mathematics or school mathematics, does it comprise mathematics from a higher standpoint including historical, epistemological, philosophical, and sociological knowledge of mathematics? What are the differences between primary and secondary levels concerning these aspects?
• Students: Who are attracted and enrolled by teacher education programs? How does mathematical teacher education take these differences into account?
• Instruction methods: Role of self-regulated student study groups in contrast to lecture work. Could we examine the epistemological complex of the pre-service teacher who is alternatively earliest pupil, university student and mathematics teacher? What kind of adaptation (projective, normative, avoiding or removing) could we see when preservice teachers are in a mathematic class and articulate mathematics knowledge and the needs of pupils?
• Agents: Who is in charge of the pre-service mathematical education of teacher? Mathematicians, experienced mathematics teachers, specialized mathematics teacher educators or didacticians. What are their views about different types and opportunities of learning offered to the future teachers within their respective expertise? What are the interactions between mentors and university teacher educators before, during and after field experience (teaching practice)? What are the impacts of field experience?
• Aims: The particular forms, sites, contents, instruction methods and agents may produce a cumulative effect on the future teachers. In many places, the pre-service education of secondary mathematics teachers shows the tendency to aim implicitly at forming the habits of a mathematician, and not of a mathematics teacher. Taking a long term perspective, what does research inform policymakers about the impacts of mathematics teacher training on the outcomes of the students of these future teachers? Since this is serious gap in research, participants are encouraged to suggest innovative research to create knowledge about this gap.

Focus of TSG26 and main research questions
The main focus of TSG 26 will be on empirical, as well as theoretical and developmental papers on issues such as:
1. A comparison of the educational programs of pre-service education of mathematics teachers or pre-service education of teachers teaching mathematics at primary level in different countries, including empirical studies on effectiveness of various teacher educational systems all over the world, with a special focus of East-West comparisons ;
2. The link or relationship between the various parts of the education programs such as mathematical knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge and pedagogical knowledge, the role of practical experiences in teacher education, for pre-service mathematical primary and secondary teachers and eventually the learning outcomes of their students ;
3. Detailed analysis of the kind of mathematics, that is necessary for pre-service teacher education, the role of elementary mathematics from an advanced standpoint, especially for primary future teachers ;
4. Innovative and creative approaches including training resources for a redesign of pre-service mathematics education (under educational/curriculum reforms in particular) existing at various parts of the world.

Call for papers 
We welcome proposals that deal with all aspects of the above focus and innovative ideas that promote a better mathematical education for pre-service teachers.
We strongly encourage you to participate in the work of the group with a paper, which might be only discussed. If you want to participate, please send a text of 2000 words which presents the theoretical framework and the relationship to the main focus of TSG26, the methodology, results and possible conclusion.Please submit your text as attachment before November 30, 2011both via e-mails to the co-chairs and through the on-line submission system at the Congress website.
The paper shall be submitted as a PDF file using Times New Roman 11-point font size and single-spacing. Please also include title, author(s), institution, email address at the beginning of the abstract.
TSG 26 will meet for four sessions of 1.5 hours each. The organization of the time slots will depend on the proposals submitted.
All proposed papers will be peer-reviewed. The decision of whether the paper will be accepted without or with presentation at the conference will be sent out by January 1, 2012. The final paper shall be submitted no later than April 1, 2012.