Barriers to a Successful Partnership.

In the process of trying to establish their partnership, Heaton and Lewis have encountered a number of barriers to success. Among the challenges they encountered in establishing a partnership that bridged their worlds of mathematics education and mathematics are the following:


Student evaluations of mathematics faculty teaching courses for future elementary school teachers tend to be quite critical, even for faculty who are used to receiving outstanding student evaluations in most courses that they teach. Students in these math courses do not see relevance in the mathematics they study to their future work as elementary teachers. Frequently, these students have had one or two courses directly related to their preparation to be teachers by the time they take their required mathematics courses. Knowledge of pedagogy acquired in these courses provides a basis, or at least a vocabulary, for offering harsh criticisms of the pedagogy of their mathematics instructors. As a consequence, tenure-track mathematics faculty resist teaching these courses, and so these courses are frequently taught by graduate students or part-time lecturers.

 
There are cultural differences in how instruction is delivered and students are assessed. Math faculty expectations seem to overwhelm students in the Elementary Teacher Education Program. As a student moves through the Elementary Teacher Education Program, the evaluation for their work as students becomes more dependent on projects than on homework and tests. This means that there is often stark contrast in the kinds of expectations students encounter in the math courses and their courses directly related to learning to teach. The math courses and their accompanying expectations are perceived as being much higher than what is expected of students in their education courses. Grading is also an issue. On UNL’s campus, College of Education and Human Sciences faculty give among the highest grades on campus while the mathematics department gives the lowest.

 
Many students are typically advised to take the math content courses prior to admission to the Elementary Teacher Education Program. This is related to an attitude held by many students and advisors of just getting through the math courses as soon as possible. This attitude and reality has made it difficult to identify large number of students eligible for our project, designed to teach two of the three required math content courses at the same time students are taking pedagogy courses.

 
Few students choose mathematics as an area of concentration within the Elementary Teacher Education Program. Generally, advisors in College of Education and Human Sciences direct students or students self-select themselves away from additional mathematics classes because of the perception that the courses are too difficult.

 
The Elementary Teacher Education Program is designed in a highly sequenced way with methods courses offered in blocks, linked to other methods courses and field experiences. This design makes trying to offer something new, without adding credits or courses, difficult.