Travis Weiland, assistant professor of mathematics education in the curriculum and instruction department at the University of Houston and a Texas MTEP team member, is featured in a recent episode of the Mathematics Teacher Educator Podcast titled “Taking a Spatial Turn in Mathematics Teacher Education.”
The spaces we inhabit and the physical communities in which we learn all affect how we come to experience the world, construct what mathematics is to us, and develop how we teach mathematics. This episode covers a theory-to-practice article in which the authors discuss why explicitly considering spatial ways of knowing is important in mathematics teacher education. They begin by providing theoretical arguments for the importance of considering space in mathematics education. The authors then present a rationale for why considering space is so important in mathematics teacher education, specifically discussing links to the practice of teaching mathematics. Examples of how to consider tasks related to spatial justice are provided to help re-imagine what a mathematics teacher education task can look like.