Supporting Prospective Teachers in Using Mathematics to Understand Our World

Abstract

We, a teacher educator and two of my former students, discuss the role of meaningful real-world connections as a means to creating a more equitable and socially just mathematics curriculum. First, Felton-Koestler describes his use of real-world projects in courses for future teachers. Then Sutherland and Tracy describe their experiences with the projects and give examples of the real-world connections they made. Finally, we consider some of the themes across the prospective teachers’ work and future directions for implementing this form of teaching in teacher education courses.