Chapter 20: Prospective Elementary Teacher Education Program Design: What We Still Do Not Know About Balancing Content and Pedagogy

Prospective elementary teacher (PSET) education programs in the United States vary greatly in the courses employed to prepare their students in terms of the balancing of mathematics content and pedagogy. This chapter explores potential tradeoffs that arise for mathematics teacher educators (MTEs) in the preparation of PSETs’ mathematical knowledge for teaching due to the choices PSET education programs make. More specifically, the chapter looks at literature through the lenses of MTEs’ course preparation and PSETs’ learning trajectories and discusses different models of content and pedagogy integration across/within PSETs’ mathematics education coursework. Literature-based discussions on future research directions regarding PSET education program and course design are also provided.