Educators/Education: Multiple proposals needed?

Question

Proposals: Educators, Education Technology, Mathematics Teacher Educators, Computer Science Education

Titles/Followers/Descriptions:

• Educators
  Followers: 57

  teachers, professors, tutors, learning specialists, trainers, and educational researchers to discuss tools and best practices for instruction of all age groups in any content area.

• Education Technology
  Followers: 43

  school administrators, Teachers, and EdTech entrepreneurs

• Mathematics Teacher Educators
  Followers: 9

  members of the Association of Mathematics Teacher Educators and others devoted to the pre-service education and professional development of K - 12 teachers of mathematics

• Computer Science Education
  Followers: 45

  k-12 and post-secondary computer science educators.

I see the last three proposals as subsets of the first, and the FAQ says:

Should my idea be part of an existing site, or its own site?

In general, if a site makes sense as part of a bigger site, it's better to have one big site than a bunch of little niche sites. Site X should be subsumed by site Y if:

1. Almost all X questions are on-topic for site Y
2. If Y already exists, it already has a tag for X, and nobody is complaining
3. You're not creating such a big group that you don't have enough experts to answer all possible questions
4. There's a high probability that users of site Y would enjoy seeing the occasional question about X

For more information, read the post Merging Season on the blog.

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The issues at hand:

• Are there questions that would be on topic for Educational Technology, Mathematics Teacher Educators, or Computer Science Education that would be off topic on Educators?
• Does it make sense to close some/all of them as subsets?

Answer 1

We don't yet have enough support to create an Education site -- trying to splinter it into several sub-specialties will only hamper that effort.

Our engine already includes the ability to follow or ignore tags, so users can focus on the content that most matters to them personally. We expect specific, long-tail questions -- and if we lead by example during the private beta, new users will see that getting deep into specialized areas is not only allowed but expected.

On StackOverflow, we have people coding in assembler, people coding in Python, C++, and dozens of other languages. They do UI coding, operating system development, mobile apps, web development, and any number of other, unrelated tasks. And yes, they have their differences.

Teaching is the same way. You're all teaching no matter what tools and strategies you use or what you are trying to teach. Any good, long-tail question will only be interesting to or answerable by some subset of any Stack site... and you'll find that that subset isn't always who you think.

Answer 2

Should "chemistry", "biology", and "physics" all be closed in favor of a general "science" site? Certainly no topic on "chemistry" would be out of place on the "science" site.

It seems like there will always be a continuum of possible groupings, and the question of whether to merge related topics into a supersite is always present for any group. In the case of Mathematics education, I feel that it is a specialized enough subset of education that it feels like the distinction between "chemistry" and "science"

I can say personally that I would love a site dedicated to Math Ed, but would probably never visit a general education site.

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There is another aspect to this question which is maybe more personal than anything else, but I feel like there is a lot of legit mathematics being done in Math Education, but it is of a completely different character from the mathematics being done by Mathematicians. Namely, Math Educators are actively pursuing an extreme depth of mathematical knowledge of "basic" ideas.

As an example, if you ask most Ph.D. students in mathematics why we divide fractions the way we do, you are not likely to get a very understandable response ("Well, the rationals are the fraction field of the integers, and ..."). If you sharpen your question and ask "Give an example of a real world problem modeling 2/3 divided by 7/8, and use ordinary reasoning about those quantities to find the answer", they will probably be at a loss. People actively thinking about Math Ed will (hopefully) have an answer.

How many complex analysts have never drawn a picture to explain why the integral of 1/z around the unit circle is 2*pi*i, a computation which is of the utmost importance to the entire subject? I would imagine a good fraction of them! I would put Tristam Needham's book in the category of "Math education research" rather than "Math research".

My point is that there is mathematical work being done at many different levels. Mathematics educators are actively engaging in mathematical research at a depth which is generally not recognized by the wider mathematical community.

I have realized that I am much happier exploring mathematical concepts at resolution being concentrated on by Math Educators. No one in the education forum is going to be interested in exploring mathematical concepts at this depth, except for other Math Educators, and these kinds of questions would not generally be accepted at MathOverflow.

Answer 3

The first question is certainly one that should be asked--but in this case, I believe, can be answered in the affirmative. Mathematics teacher educators are not only teachers of mathematics, but they are persons who teach and prepare teachers of mathematics. So, while there are topics that are of interest as educators, there are topics that are of interest because they are teaching pre-service and in-service teachers about teaching and learning, specifically, mathematics.

Moreover, as MTE's, we are interested in the mathematics knowledge for teaching. So, the audience is more than a niche; it is an intersection that describes a special population. While I agree that a multitude of niche sites is not desirable, it is true that there are subset populations that have little crossover into other subsets of a larger group, and would not benefit from being aggregated under the larger umbrella. This is the case here. ON all four of the suggested criteria above, our proposed site would create a unique opportunity that meets a specific need of that community, and there are enough sub-topics to allow the site to be organized capaciously to meet the needs of mathematics teacher educators! While some MTE's might sign up if Q n A were subsumed under the larger category "Educators," most MTE's would not do so, losing that opportunity to build community and to engage in dialogue about their work to help prepare and support teachers.

Thank you for your query, and we hope to see the site develop quickly--we just started it today!

Answer 4

Mathematics teacher educators are a special, cohesive subgroup of all educators. We need a site that is specifically for us so that we can discuss our issues and ideas deeply. A site that is spread too thinly across topics will not be attractive to mathematics teacher educators because it will be seen as a place for shallow discussions.

Answer 5

1. No, I suppose not.
2. Yes, I think it makes perfect sense.