A Situated perspective on learning to teach secondary mathematics

This paper applies a situated perspective on learning to investigate the process of becoming a secondary mathematics teacher. We followed a group of beginning teachers into their early teaching careers. Each participant was interviewed on three separate occasions during their university studies in order to examine how they interpreted their practicum experiences. In the following year, we again interviewed some of the participants to investigate their sense of self as mathematics teachers and to document the issues which they identified as significant in shaping their classroom practices. The beginning teachers saw the culture of the school and pedagogies of more experienced colleagues as the most important factors affecting their professional growth and ability to implement Working Mathematically in the classroom.