Mathematics teacher educators in primary teacher education need expert knowledge and skills in teaching in primary school, in subject matter and research. Most starting mathematics teacher educators possess only part of this knowledge and skills. A professional development trajectory for this group is developed and tested, where a design based research is used to evaluate the design. This paper describes the professional development trajectory and design. We conclude that the professional development design should focus on mathematical knowledge for teaching, should refer to both teacher education and primary education, should offer opportunities for cooperative learning, and need to use practice based research as a developmental tool.
Extended Reality (XR) technologies—including virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and mixed reality (MR)—offer transformative opportunities for education by enabling immersive and interactive learning experiences. In this study, we employed a mixed-methods approach that combined systematic desk research with an expert member check to evaluate existing pedagogical frameworks for XR integration. We analyzed several established models (e.g., TPACK, TIM, SAMR, CAMIL, and DigCompEdu) to assess their strengths and limitations in addressing the unique competencies required for XRsupported teaching. Our results indicate that, while these models offer valuable insights into technology integration, they often fall short in specifying XR-specific competencies. Consequently, we extended the DigCompEdu framework by identifying and refining concrete building blocks for teacher professionalization in XR. The conclusions drawn from this research underscore the necessity for targeted professional development that equips educators with the practical skills needed to effectively implement XR in diverse educational settings, thereby providing actionable strategies for fostering digital innovation in teaching and learning.
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For me the concept of the teacher educator as a agent of social change, implies that teacher educators should be focused on stimulating change and improvement in teacher education, schools and society. That focus should not only shape our teaching of student teachers, but also our research activities. This has implications for the research projects that we undertake. When research by teacher educators intends to contribute to change and improvement of practices in teacher education, schools and society, our research projects need to be understood as interventions. In the design of PhD or other research projects, not only academic requirements regarding validity should be taken into also account but also criteria that contribute to interventions and change in universities, schools and society.Effective change is a collective challenge, which requires likeminded colleagues.
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