Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching Developmental Courses at the Community College: An Unexplored Terrain

The domain of Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching (MKT) has provided theoretical and empirical advancements to teacher education scholarship. Today, MKT is widely recognized as a critical component of teachers' preparation, professional development, and experience. Early studies at the elementary level set the stage for defining, measuring, assessing, and augmenting this knowledge in pre-service and in-service teachers. Subsequent studies are demonstrating MKT's significance in university and secondary teaching. Despite MKT's growing influence in education, one institution that has been largely ignored is the community college. Given the community college's role of remediation alongside the diverse and often underprepared student body it serves, we urge the mathematics education community to examine MKT in the context of community college developmental mathematics. Based on preliminary interviews with experienced faculty at two-year institutions (n = 12), we propose a provisional amendment to the domains of MKT -- the Caring Map. We speculate that in order to make sense of developmental mathematics teaching at the community college, research is needed to determine the extent to which teacher caring supports mathematics teaching, student learning, and student achievement.