4: Creating and Implementing a Capstone Course for Future Secondary Mathematics Teachers

In the first AMTE monograph, Mathews (2004) describes the development of a Concepts in Calculus Course for Middle School Teachers in response to the recommendations from both the Mathematical Association of America [MAA] and the Conference Board of the Mathematical Sciences [CBMS]. At the University of St. Thomas, we have developed and implemented a course to respond to other recommendations in the 2001 CBMS document, The Mathematical Education of Teachers [MET]. In our course, we aim to follow the recommendations of the CBMS and address the Minnesota Board of Teaching [MNBoT] licensure requirements for future high school teachers.

Part I of the MET document contains two main recommendations for the preparation of future high school teachers. The first focuses on redesigning core mathematics courses to address connections between the college course content preservice teachers learn and the high school course content they will teach. The second recommendation suggests that mathematics departments “support the design, development, and offering of a capstone course sequence for teachers in which conceptual difficulties, fundamental ideas and techniques of high school mathematics are examined from an advanced standpoint” (CBMS 2001, P. 39).