Being a Mathematics Teacher Educator in China: Challenges and Strategic Responses

In this exploratory study, we developed a portrait of the challenges and strategic responses of secondary mathematics teacher educators (MTEs) in Chinese universities. The MTEs reported encountering more challenges when teaching pedagogical courses and supervising student teachers than when teaching college mathematics courses and teaching mathematical problem-solving courses. This finding reflects a key difference between the content, goals, and teaching demands of these 2 elements of mathematics teacher education programs (acting in the role of an MTE versus the role of a mathematics teacher). In this study, we also analyzed the strategies that MTEs use to deal with the challenges that arise in their work and the suggestions they have for the training of future MTEs.