Dr. Peter Appelbaum, professor of Education, has teamed up with Dr. Constantinos Xenofontos, a professor of mathematical sciences at the University of Agder in Norway, on new research in the Hiroshima Journal of Mathematics Education. This is the fifth article the pair has published together since 2022. 

“What’s exciting about collaborating with Constantinos is how our very different cultural contexts and contrasting national expectations for teachers reveal common conceptual blind spots that would otherwise go unseen,” Appelbaum said. “What we were able to do in this last article was to directly challenge the common assumption that teachers should remove all ambiguity, struggle, and failure. It turns out that professional orchestration of these sorts of challenges can and should support students’ personal growth as well as learning of concepts and skills.”

The duo is currently working on their next collaboration, an article exploring the concept of empty space as a generative and transformative force in mathematics teacher education. Drawing from disciplines such as physics, theater, architecture, and graphic design, the piece reconceptualizes emptiness not as absence, but as a chance for potential, relational meaning, and creative emergence. 

“Our argument advances the idea that deliberately unprescribed spaces within teacher education programs–where content is not predetermined–can foster co-creation, critical reflection, and pedagogical imagination,” Appelbaum explained. “We use Arcadia’s Empty Bowl event as a metaphorical example: An empty bowl is infinitely refillable, not an absence of food, and the event has an infinite impact on the families that benefit from the contributions of so many who make the event a success.”

In addition to the recent publication, Appelbaum and Constantinos have published the following: