Fran Arbaugh Elected President of AMTE

by Sara LaJeunesse (February 2012)

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- Fran Arbaugh, an associate professor of mathematics education at Penn State, has been elected president of the Association of Mathematics Teacher Educators (AMTE), the country’s largest professional organization devoted to the improvement of mathematics teacher education. She will serve the organization for one year as president-elect beginning in February 2012. She then will serve as president for two years beginning in February 2013, and will serve as past-president for one year beginning in February 2015.

“As president of AMTE, I will contribute time, effort, and knowledge to advance the goals of the association and its board,” said Arbaugh.

AMTE’s goals include promoting effective mathematics teacher education programs and practices, improving communication and collaboration among those involved in mathematics teacher education, and promoting research and other scholarly endeavors related to mathematics teacher education. As president, Arbaugh also will serve as AMTE’s representative and voting member of the Conference Board of Mathematical Sciences.

A researcher in the area of mathematics teacher education, Arbaugh seeks to understand how mathematics teachers learn to use instructional practices that promote deep mathematical understanding. “I am particularly interested in conducting scholarly activity in three interrelated areas,” she said. “These include mathematics teacher knowledge and learning, contexts of teacher learning, and supporting teacher learning.”

Arbaugh has published her work in national and international journals, including the Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, the International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education, the Journal of Science Teacher Education, and the Journal of Mathematics Education Leadership. She has shared her research with mathematics teacher audiences by contributing chapters to books, including the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics’ “Teaching and Learning Mathematics: Translating Research to the Secondary Classroom” and “Responding to Diversity: Grades 9-12.” She is currently a co-editor of the Journal of Teacher Education.

Arbaugh is a former high-school mathematics teacher. She received an M.Ed. degree in secondary mathematics education from Virginia Commonwealth University in 1996 and a Ph.D. degree in curriculum and instruction (mathematics education) from Indiana University-Bloomington in 2000. She joined the faculty at Penn State in August 2009, having first spent eight years as a faculty member at the University of Missouri, where she was named a 2007 William T. Kemper Fellow for Teaching Excellence, the highest teaching honor awarded at that institution.