On becoming a 21st Century teacher: Exploring math student teachers’ perception of the math teacher through communities of practices

Field Study 6 “On Becoming a 21st Century Teacher” of math student teachers through the framework communities of practices was observed and purposely used for this study. Thus, analyses their induction experiences. The primary research question was apprehensive with how math student teachers perceived to what bands the professional community practices of the math educators. A qualitative research study (Narrative) was designed. Written journals and face-to-face interviews by the participants were tools to collect data. Engaging, imagining, and aligning was the three ways of belonging in communities of practice framework used to analyse the data. Result shows that participants have valuable opinions and observations with regards to the faculty set-up (arrangement), teaching loads of cooperating teachers and professional relationships such as being approachable among mathematics teachers. It was revealed from the data how mathematics student teachers aligned themselves with values and norms of the university -where they finish three years of their undergraduate education and school cultures. Moreover, experiences and proficiencies in their cooperating schools strengthened views about what was upheld in the college of teacher education curriculum such as formative assessment and its importance, teaching methodologies, techniques and approaches. Strong subject knowledge were also strengthened as a product of observations in their cooperating school was significantly importance.