Excellent student teachers of a Dutch teacher education institute for primary education develop their ability to create mathematical problems

Two teacher educators at a teacher education institute for primary education in the Netherlands invited some excellent student teachers to join them in creating a website with mathematical problems for their fellow student teachers. Their „colleagues‟ could then use these problems to prepare for a nationwide mathematics test. The teacher educators tried to teach the excellent student teachers how to create appropriate problems and coached them in achieving this ambitious aim. They developed a learning environment and continuously observed and evaluated the motivational and mathematical level of the student teachers to improve their learning environment if necessary. After some time the student teachers themselves participated in this cyclic reflective improvement process of their learning environment. The development of the learning environment was the object of this case study.
The student teachers who finally reached the end of the trajectory extended their mathematical knowledge for teaching considerably. A learning environment with well-balanced attention for competence, relatedness and autonomy seems valuable for the excellent student teachers to reach their aim, especially when teacher educators and student teachers work together in a continuous cyclic search for the best balance between the valuable aspects of the learning environment.