Networked to Improve Clinical Experiences for Secondary Mathematics Education Teacher Candidates

Author(s):
Marilyn Strutchens
Emily R. and Gerald S. Leischuck Endowed and Mildred Cheshire Fraley Distinguished Professor
Auburn University

The Association of Mathematics Teacher Educators’ [AMTE] Standards for Preparing Teachers of Mathematics program standards underlie the work of the Clinical Experiences Research Action Cluster [CERAC] of the Mathematics Teacher Education Partnership. We especially emphasize standard P.4, which states: “An effective mathematics teacher preparation program includes clinical experiences that are guided on the basis of a shared vision of high-quality mathematics instruction and have sufficient support structures and personnel to provide coherent, developmentally appropriate opportunities for candidates to teach and to learn from their own teaching and the teaching of others.” (AMTE, 2017, p. 26). Over the past five years, CERAC has focused on improving clinical experiences for secondary mathematics teacher candidates, specifically: How does a continuum of collaborative and student-focused clinical experiences, including co-planning/co-teaching and paired placement fieldwork models, impact pre-service teachers’ equitable implementation of the Mathematics Teaching Practices (NCTM, 2014) across institutional contexts? CERAC is using improvement science frameworks drawn from the networked improvement community (NIC) approach (Bryk et al., 2015). In this session we share the guiding principles underlying our work, tools we have used to transform our clinical experiences, and implementation results.