Learning in secondary preservice teacher education from the communities of practice perspective

On the basis of a study of a group of mathematics preservice teachers working at home developing the tasks for a methods course, we discuss the implications of introducing the communities of practice perspective in mathematics teacher education. We argue that learning as a social practice should be valued in this context and we identify some of the issues involved in designing and implementing teacher training programs based on this conceptual framework. PRESERVICE TEACHERS ’ LEARNING IN A METHODS COURSE Research in teacher education has become increasingly concerned with teachers ’ development from perspectives rooted in sociocultural views of learning (Lerman, 2001). In particular, Wenger’s social theory of learning (Wenger, 1998) and its notion of community of practice are becoming popular as a conceptual framework for exploring the learning processes of teachers working together. However, “while mathematics teacher education researchers are creating contexts that enable teacher learning and describe what teachers