Exploring Tertiary Teachers’ Promotion of Caring Communities in Mathematics

In this article, we utilize a networking of theories approach to connect the documentational approach to didactics (DAD) and a theory of meanings to explore and develop models of two tertiary teachers' understandings of developmental mathematics and its students, and the resources each teacher utilizes to support instruction.We illustrate how teachers' understandings related to developmental mathematics and its students promote and support mathematical caring relations and a sense of belonging as learners of and contributors to mathematics in their students.In addition, we discuss the affective aspects of the schemes of meanings that came to each teachers' minds as a result of these understandings, including anxiety, frustration, interest, identity, motivation, persistence, and self-efficacy.We posit that participating teachers' meanings demonstrate their attention to decentering; that is, to attempt to imagine one's experience from another perspective.Finally, we describe how networking the documentational approach and a theory of meanings provide researchers and mathematics teacher educators with a framework focused on teachers' documentation work that supports identification of the schemes of meanings with which teachers teach and has the potential to support the design of productive professional learning experiences (to student learning) for both preservice and inservice teachers.