Journal of Mathematical Behavior xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx

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Journal of Mathematical Behavior

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jmathb

Knowledge of nonlocal mathematics for teaching

⁎
Nicholas H. Wasserman
Teachers College, Columbia University, 525 W. 120th St, Box 210-M, New York, NY, 10027, United States

AR TI CLE I NF O AB S T R A CT

Keywords: The notion of practice-based models for mathematical knowledge for teaching has played a pi-
Mathematics teacher education votal role in the conception of teacher knowledge. In this work, teachers’ knowledge of mathe-
Mathematical knowledge for teaching matics that is outside the scope of what is being taught (nonlocal mathematics) is considered
Nonlocal mathematics more explicitly. Drawing on a cognitive model for the development of mathematical knowledge
for teaching, this paper explores the implications for the underlying theory being applied to
(nonlocal) knowledge outside the scope what is being taught as being influential for the teaching
of (local) mathematics. The work provides a unique perspective on the role of advanced
mathematics with respect to secondary teaching. Considerations for mathematics teacher edu-
cation are discussed.

Teachers’ mathematical knowledge, and the role that it plays in classroom practice, has been a central question in mathematics
education for a long time. Some scholars have developed frameworks that describe various domains of that knowledge (e.g., Ball,
Thames, & Phelps, 2008; McCrory et al., 2012; Shulman, 1986); others, have focused on its development (e.g., Silverman &
Thompson, 2008). Indeed, recent efforts have generally adhered to a practice-based approach to considering knowledge–that is, the
content that teachers should know should be directly related to the knowledge that gets used in the various aspects of teaching. Much
of this work has focused on how a teacher should understand the content that they teach. Such knowledge is certainly important, as
this is the content that a teacher interacts with most regularly. Yet, when it comes to knowing content that is outside the scope of what
one teaches, there is little consensus as to its importance or to its implications on classroom practice. For instance, one might ask
whether knowledge of abstract algebra is important for or influential on the teaching of school algebra. In this regard, some re-
searchers have discussed the potential limitations of such knowledge (i.e., an “expert blind spot” (Nathan & Petrosino, 2003)),
whereas others articulate its value but have not elaborated much further (e.g., Ball et al., 2008; Schoenfeld & Kilpatrick, 2008).
In this paper, I draw on Silverman and Thompson’s (2008) cognitive model for the development of mathematical knowledge for
teaching as a means to adapt and explore theoretical ramifications that are specific to considering knowledge of content outside the
scope of what is being taught. That is, rather than addressing the issue of mathematical knowledge for teaching broadly, I delve
specifically into a particular aspect–the influence of mathematics outside of what is being taught on teaching. The purpose in
adapting the cognitive model to knowledge outside the scope of what is being taught is that doing so provides a fundamentally
different perspective on such mathematical knowledge. The adaptation offers a different rationale for why studying such mathematics
might be important, and provides novel implications for how we should consider teaching content courses in mathematics teacher
education. However, prior to exploring this adaptation (which begins in Section 4), I elaborate on related literature (in Sections 1–3).
Doing so primarily aims to situate and specify what is meant by content outside the scope of what is being taught. Lastly, although my
experience and most examples stem from secondary mathematics teaching and are primarily related to university-level mathematics
courses (e.g., abstract algebra, etc.), the adaptation of the model and its definitions intentionally allow for a more flexible

⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: wasserman@tc.columbia.edu.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmathb.2017.11.003
Received 16 March 2017; Received in revised form 20 November 2017; Accepted 20 November 2017
0732-3123/ © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Please cite this article as: Wasserman, N.H., Journal of Mathematical Behavior (2017),
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmathb.2017.11.003
N.H. Wasserman Journal of Mathematical Behavior xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx

interpretation that would also make sense in other contexts.

1. Knowledge for teaching

In this section, I discuss extant literature that has specifically elaborated on knowledge for teaching, especially, in the domain of
mathematics. In particular, I explore ideas others have discussed in relation to content outside the scope of what is being taught.

1.1. Pedagogical content knowledge

Shulman’s (1986, 1987) coining of the term pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) was a defining moment in the study of teachers’
knowledge. Essentially, he argued that pedagogical knowledge for teaching was discipline-specific–: the teaching of history and the
teaching of mathematics were inherently different precisely because the subject matter being studied was different. Subsequently,
this notion was widely adopted into educational nomenclature.
In addition to PCK, Shulman had a few other categories of knowledge, which included content knowledge and curricular knowledge.
Shulman’s description of content knowledge was both all of the specific knowledge of the subject accumulated through study
(substantive structures) as well as broader knowledge about the subject (syntactic structures), such as the principles of inquiry by
which claims are established. His was a very broad description of content knowledge, essentially, including anything one may have
learned at any time about the subject. As for curricular knowledge, this domain intended to capture “curricular” aspects of
knowledge–i.e., “the materia medica of pedagogy, the pharmacopeia from which the teacher draws those tools of teaching” (Shulman,
1986, p. 10). This included relationships between the curriculum being taught and other content areas, i.e., lateral curricular
knowledge, as well as past and future studies in that particular subject area, i.e., vertical curricular knowledge. Both lateral and
vertical might be considered outside the scope of what is being taught. However, I also point out these domains were explicitly
“curricular” in nature–they related to knowing and evaluating the progression of curricular materials.
Although there are differences of opinion as to whether or not this construct has been productive (e.g., Tirosh & Graeber, 2008), I
make a simpler point: Shulman’s distinctions parsed subject matter knowledge into content knowledge (CK) and pedagogical content
knowledge (PCK). Rather than talking about CK and pedagogical knowledge (PK) as separate entities, Shulman pointed out that their
intersection, PCK, was a meaningful (and distinct) category in its own right. However, his sense of content knowledge was all-
encompassing: what one knows about (and knows of) a subject from study in elementary school to advanced undergraduate studies is
all the same–it is content knowledge.

1.2. Mathematical knowledge for teaching

Whereas Shulman outlined professional knowledge for all teachers, Ball et al. (e.g., Ball et al., 2008) refined the notion of domains
of teacher knowledge to be specific for mathematics teachers. Indeed, their development of the Mathematical Knowledge for
Teaching (MKT) framework has been widely adopted in mathematics education. In addition to being explicit about teacher
knowledge being in relation to the work of teaching (i.e., a practice-based approach to teacher knowledge), the primary contribution
of MKT was positing three sub-domains of both content knowledge (common content knowledge, specialized content knowledge, and
horizon content knowledge) and pedagogical content knowledge (knowledge of content and students, knowledge of content and
teaching, knowledge of content and curriculum). That is, they elaborated on Shulman’s distinctions further, based on thinking
specifically about the knowledge base for mathematics teaching. This used the same approach of primarily differentiating CK from
PCK, but has the added aspect of further defining three sub-domains of content knowledge.
The subject-matter category, horizon content knowledge (HCK), is perhaps the most associated with knowing mathematics
outside the scope of what one teaches. Yet in contrast to the other two subject-matter sub-domains, HCK was only provisionally
included and was left underdeveloped. (Knowledge of content and curriculum on the PCK side was similarly provisional in nature.)
Ball and Bass (2009) elaborated some possible ideas about HCK, which included “a sense of the mathematical environment sur-
rounding the current ‘location’ in instruction” as well as some broader disciplinary ideas, e.g., “key mathematical practices”, “core
values.” I note the similarities of these descriptions to Shulman’s comments about principles of inquiry, organizing structures, etc.
Indeed, although others have worked to further conceptualize HCK (e.g., Wasserman & Stockton, 2013 Jakobsen, Thames & Ribeiro,
2013; Fernánez & Figueiras, 2014, Zazkis & Mamolo, 2011), there has yet to be adequate clarity and consensus in the field about its
nature (e.g., Wasserman, 2014). For example, whether “the horizon” should be interpreted as the mathematical horizon for students or
the mathematical horizon for teachers (Zazkis & Mamolo, 2011), whether “the horizon” presumes a forward-facing directionality or
can include other directions (e.g., Jakobsen et al., 2013), or whether HCK is a separate domain of knowledge or, instead, a factor that
in some way determines the “shape” of the other domains (e.g., Fernánez & Figueiras, 2014), are all questions that have arisen with
respect to this sub-domain.
One problematic aspect of horizon content knowledge (HCK) has been its potential overlap with other sub-domains (Wasserman &
Stockton, 2013Jakobsen et al., 2013; Jakobsen et al., 2013). Indeed, to situate HCK within the subject-matter-knowledge portion of
the MKT framework requires differentiating it from the two other domains; yet given the original definitions for CCK and SCK, it is
unclear whether anything else could actually co-exist as a different domain of subject-matter-knowledge. CCK was defined as “the
mathematical knowledge and skills used in settings other than teaching” (p. 399). Essentially, teachers must have some basic
knowledge of mathematics, such as being able to determine wrong answers, proper notation, etc., that many other people have
gained and acquired–it is the kind of knowledge of mathematics that other professionals besides teachers would be expected to know.

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CCK was “in other words, not unique to teaching” (p. 399). In contrast, SCK was described as “mathematical knowledge and skill
unique to teaching” (p. 400). The examples in their paper depicting this domain of knowledge were powerful. Demonstrating the
kinds of mathematical activity that teachers engage in that is unique to teaching was perhaps one of the most important contributions
made by their efforts. However, having one sub-domain of knowledge that is mathematical knowledge that is unique to teaching, and
another sub-domain of knowledge that is its negation, mathematical knowledge that is not unique to teaching, almost necessarily rules
out other possible sub-domains–at least ones that would be completely distinct from these two. Indeed, this is one of the likely reasons
that horizon content knowledge was left as provisional, as well as one of the reasons that scholars have had difficulty conceptualizing
this domain of knowledge within the MKT framework.
Defining domains of teacher knowledge (i.e., the approach of Shulman (1986) and Ball et al. (2008)) has not been the only
approach to exploring mathematical knowledge for teaching; for example, Rowland, Huckstep, and Thwaites (2005) conceptualized
mathematical knowledge for teaching in relation to classroom events where a teacher’s content knowledge becomes evident, Davis
and Simmt (2006) used a complexity theory standpoint to explore the issue, and Silverman and Thompson (2008) looked at it in
terms of cognitive development (which I discuss in more detail in Section 3). Rather than debating the merits of these various
approaches, however, I make a simpler point: none of these approaches have considered mathematical knowledge for teaching by
differentiating between the mathematical ideas on which teachers draw, in relation to one another–i.e., differentiating between the
mathematics one teaches and the mathematics that is outside of that scope. In what follows, I elaborate on what I mean by knowledge
outside the scope of what one teaches–which has some intersection points with previous literature but is also separate from these
previous conceptualizations.

2. A mathematical landscape

This paper uses a different distinction for considering mathematical knowledge for teaching. In particular, instead of first par-
titioning knowledge into CK and PCK, I differentiate the relative location of mathematical ideas within a broader mathematical
landscape. In particular, the division intends to tackle the notion of mathematical knowledge outside the scope of what ones teaches
more directly. In what follows, I clarify what is meant by mathematical knowledge outside the scope of what one teaches. Since there
is continued debate around such knowledge–especially regarding its importance or utility for teaching–this work contributes to the
broader conversation about teachers’ content knowledge in mathematics education.

2.1. Local and nonlocal mathematical neighborhoods

Here, I recap distinctions I have made previously (e.g., Wasserman, 2015, 2016; Wasserman, Weber &, McGuffey 2017b). The
local mathematical neighborhood has been defined as those mathematical ideas that are relatively close to the content being taught.
“Close” in this sense entailed both the degree to which mathematical ideas were closely connected–i.e., the degree of interdependence
between them–but also temporally close in relation to when mathematical ideas were typically developed. In other words, this is a
topological description about the landscape of mathematical ideas, defining two regions: the local mathematical neighborhood of the
mathematics being taught, and the nonlocal mathematical neighborhood, which consists of ideas that are farther away. Notably, the
definitions of these two mathematical regions are in relation to the content that a teacher teaches–the content of the regions changes
depending on what a particular teacher is responsible for teaching. (Hence, the image of a teacher in Fig. 1.) Although the
mathematics being taught by the teacher is also being learned by the students, it is the teacher’s knowledge of the local and nonlocal
neighborhoods in which I am most interested. The image of a neighborhood allows for the inclusion of mathematical ideas that are
“behind” and “beside” as well as “beyond” the content being taught. Furthermore, for school mathematics teachers there might also
be a meaningful distinction made between nonlocal mathematics that is still within the broader realm of school (K-12) mathematics

Fig. 1. Mathematical Landscape.

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and that which is part of more advanced mathematical study. (See Fig. 1)
Briefly, we consider an example to elaborate on and clarify the two aspects being used to distinguish the closeness of mathe-
matical ideas–interdependence and temporal proximity. Consider a high school Algebra I teacher. At the broadest grain size, the local
neighborhood for such a teacher would encompass all of the mathematical ideas they are expected to teach. Suppose this primarily
includes the following topics: i) solving linear equations, quadratic equations, linear inequalities, and systems of linear equations; ii)
expressing and understanding properties of functions, including linear (e.g., constant rate of change), quadratic, and exponential (e.g.,
constant ratio); and iii) simplifying expressions, including combining “like terms” and dealing with exponents and rational expres-
sions. A teacher must know this local content well (and in ways that are pedagogically productive for helping students learn). The
nonlocal mathematical neighborhood consists of ideas that are farther away from this content–either in terms of (i) the temporal
development or (ii) the degree of interdependence. Considering temporal development (i), the nonlocal neighborhood would include
mathematical ideas such as derivatives from calculus and knowledge of groups as studied in abstract algebra. Both of these are not
“temporally close” to the study of introductory algebra topics–they are typically studied many years later. For similar reasons, a topic
such as differentiating the cardinal and ordinal aspects of number, which is also far-removed from–i.e., much earlier than–the study of
algebra topics would also be part of the nonlocal neighborhood. As for (ii), the nonlocal neighborhood would also include topics such
as determining the area of geometric figures. Although this may be temporally close to the study of algebra topics, the local ideas are
not interdependent on geometric figures. That is, although determining area could be used as an example of a function (e.g.,
1 (4 + b2)·6
A (b, h) = 2 bh ), or for solving linear equations (e.g., 24 = 2
), or in justifying the simplification of expressions (e.g., (x + 2)2 is
the area of a square with lengths x and 2 on each side), the teaching of these algebra topics does not necessitate doing so. Thus, the
local algebra topics are more “independent from” than “interdependent on” ideas about areas of geometric figures. The point is not
that such mathematical topics are inconsequential–indeed, exploring relationships to geometric figures or leveraging connections to
group structures likely enhances the study of these introductory algebra topics. Rather, the point is that all of these different
mathematical ideas would be regarded as part of the nonlocal mathematical neighborhood for this Algebra I teacher–they represent
ideas that, while potentially connected, are farther removed in one way or another from the local content being taught.

2.1.1. Similarities and differences to existing ideas

The distinction between the local and nonlocal neighborhoods is a distinction between mathematical ideas; in particular, it aims
to situate our exploration of knowledge of (nonlocal) content outside the scope of what one teaches. Although extant approaches have
neither explored nor made this distinction explicit, I discuss some potential relationships.
In Ball et al. (2008) Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching framework, the four prominent (i.e., “non-provisional”) domains
(CCK, SCK, KCS, KCT) appear to relate primarily to the local neighborhood. The conceptualization of CCK was, in fact, explicitly
linked to the local mathematical neighborhood: “Teachers need to know the material they teach… In short, they must to [sic] be able to
do the work that they assign their students” (italics added) (p. 400). Similarly, in introducing SCK, the authors go on to exemplify a
very deep knowledge of the local content, in ways particular for teaching. For instance: “it requires appreciating the difference
between ‘take-away’ and “comparison” models of subtraction and between “measurement” and “partitive” models of division” (p.
401). In other words, the “specialized” content knowledge that a teacher needs is, in fact, subject matter knowledge, but also a
particular kind: a deep knowledge of the local mathematics that they will teach (e.g., models of division), in ways that are specialized
to the profession. Similarly, knowledge of content and students (KCS) and knowledge of content and teaching (KCT) described aspects
of a teacher knowing both their students and the discipline of mathematics, specifically as they arise within the bounds of teaching
the local mathematics they teach. Knowledge of content and curriculum (KCC), which was provisionally included, also would relate
to the local neighborhood–a teacher should know the various curricular materials available for the content they are responsible for
teaching. In this sense, the distinction between local and nonlocal neighborhoods may be regarded as providing some additional
clarity to these sub-domains: they are primarily describing ways in which teachers should know the local content they teach.
In contrast, the provisional domain of horizon content knowledge (HCK) as well as potential aspects of knowledge of content and
curriculum (KCC) (e.g., horizontal or vertical curricular knowledge) appear to be most related to the nonlocal neighborhood. I make
two remarks. First, the fact that these were both provisional within the framework only further points to the need to explore in more
detail the role of nonlocal mathematical knowledge for teaching. Second, neither of these are identical to the nonlocal neighborhood.
Even if Ball et al.’s KCC includes “vertical” curricular knowledge (discussed in more detail below), KCC is a component of pedagogical
content knowledge and is primarily about curricular materials–not mathematical ideas. In order to discuss HCK, I first draw a
distinction between “mathematical horizon” and “horizon content knowledge.” HCK, as a sub-domain in the MKT framework, is
inherently linked to classroom practice: knowledge of the mathematical horizon in ways that are productive for the work of teaching
(which was the premise of MKT)–not just any knowledge of the mathematical horizon. (Taking a topology course might increase a
teacher’s knowledge of the mathematical horizon, but not increase their horizon content knowledge.) Thus, nonlocal mathematical
knowledge is different from HCK in that the nonlocal neighborhood is a partitioning of mathematical ideas, not (yet) related to
teaching. Now, the notion of a “mathematical horizon” may be reasonably close to the nonlocal neighborhood; however, this term
was never given precise definition. Thus, I use local and nonlocal neighborhoods (not mathematical horizon) as a means to draw
essential distinctions in this paper. This choice has two potential benefits: i) not using the term ‘horizon’ removes potential confusion
with HCK; and ii) although this may have not been the intent, for some, the term ‘horizon’ connotes a directionality (i.e., forward-
looking) whereas the topological notion of a neighborhood is omnidirectional.
Shulman’s (1986) notion of vertical curricular knowledge–“The vertical equivalent of that curriculum knowledge is familiarity
with the topics and issues that have been and will be taught in the same subject area during the preceding and later years in school,

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and the materials that embody them” (italics added) (Shulman, 1986, p. 10)–is also not equivalent to the nonlocal neighborhood. First,
Shulman’s notion, which might be related to knowledge outside of what one teaches, was not just about mathematical knowledge but
rather was inherently intertwined with curricular aspects (i.e., materials). Second, it is unclear how far the vertical aspect of this
knowledge reaches. Does this stretch into university mathematics, or is ‘school’ constrained to K-12, as I have used it? Third, this
notion appears to have a fixed grain size of one year. That is, vertical knowledge refers to content outside of what would be taught in
a given year. In contrast, the local and nonlocal neighborhoods do not presume a fixed grain size (even though the example I gave
previously, Algebra I, also used one year as a grain size). One could conceptualize the local neighborhood in relation to a particular
unit, which might make some other mathematical ideas to be discussed that same year part of the nonlocal neighborhood.

2.1.2. Additional considerations

Briefly, I elaborate on three further aspects of the partitioning between local and nonlocal mathematical ideas. The first is that this
approach may be particularly pertinent for the discipline of mathematics. Although knowing ideas beyond what one teaches may be
interesting to discuss in every subject area, in the teaching of mathematics, it takes on an even more important role. Compared to
many other disciplines, mathematics is fairly linear in its developmental trajectory–new ideas and concepts are progressively built on
and refined from older ones throughout the course (often, over a decade) of one’s mathematical study. This means that in mathematics
what one teaches now often began at some previous point and will be revisited again at a later point–frequently with increasing
degrees of sophistication and nuance. For example, for a middle schooler, the idea of an exponent is a relatively straightforward
concept: 54 = 5 · 5 · 5 · 5. However, the meaning of an exponent continues to be revisited as one’s idea of “number” is extended: what
(3 + 4i)1/4 or (−2) 4 + 3i mean are complex questions. I see this as indicative that the initial distinction between local and nonlocal
mathematical neighborhoods might be particularly productive for thinking about mathematics education, and potentially less pro-
ductive in other disciplines. (Science educators, for example, have had difficulties considering what HCK might mean in their
context–e.g., Bloom & Quebec Fuentes, 2014)
The second is that mathematics includes both content and processes. As a discipline, mathematics has been a forerunner in
defining both content and process standards as important educational aims (e.g., NCTM, 2000). This duality has also been given
attention when considering teachers’ mathematical knowledge: Shulman’s discussion of content knowledge included both knowledge
of mathematics (i.e., content) and knowledge about mathematics (i.e., process). What this means is that the local content a teacher is
responsible for teaching includes both specific content ideas, as well as more general ways of doing and engaging with mathematics.
That is, the local (and nonlocal) neighborhood necessarily includes both specific content ideas as well as more general processes–e.g.,
problem solving, reasoning and proof, etc. Broader mathematical processes run across the entire mathematical landscape; the dis-
tinction between local and nonlocal mathematical neighborhoods, then, primarily differentiates mathematical content (not process)
aspects. That is not to say this aspect of mathematics is ignored in this approach; rather, it simply indicates that differentiating local
and nonlocal mathematics does not apply to mathematical processes. They are still there and still part of the conversation–but as a
part of both neighborhoods. (The discussion in Section 5.3 of mathematical processes in advanced mathematics, for example, is not
intended to suggest mathematical processes only exist in one neighborhood or the other.) The fact that mathematical processes reside
in both neighborhoods is not to say that reasoning and proof in elementary school and high school mathematics are identical. They
are not. But reasoning and proof does reside in both places. And while it certainly may be the case that for teaching some content,
such as geometry, particular mathematical processes are more essential than others, trying to parse these processes into neighbor-
hoods feels arbitrary, as all interactions with mathematics should aim to teach and instill what it means to engage in doing
mathematics.
The third is that the distinction between local and nonlocal mathematics brings to the fore an inherent difficulty in thinking about
knowledge for teaching. Namely, nonlocal content outside the scope of what one teaches should not end up being taught to students.
To be blunt, we are discussing mathematics that should, theoretically, not arise explicitly in instruction–secondary teachers should be
teaching algebra, not abstract algebra. And yet, in accord with the fundamental premise of a practice-based approach to teacher
knowledge, it should simultaneously be influential for their teaching. Therein lies a fundamental tension. If an elementary teacher
should not be teaching students about limits, and an algebra teacher should not be teaching secondary students about groups, how
can such knowledge be important for and influential on their teaching of local content? In this regard, some have tried to depict
classroom situations–e.g., Ball (2009) discussed how knowledge of limits might be useful for responding to some student questions
about division by fractions, and Wasserman (2016) discussed how knowledge of groups might influence instruction about solving
simple linear equations. The broader point, however, is that although carving out categories (i.e., local and nonlocal) for such
mathematical knowledge may be productive, simply having categories does little to actually inform how or why such knowledge gets
used productively in teaching. Indeed, some teachers appear to approach content from a transport-model perspective (e.g.,
Wasserman, under review)–the degree to which content is perceived as relevant to them is the degree to which the teacher views that
content as “transportable” to their own classroom teaching contexts. This is particularly problematic with regard to nonlocal content
knowledge; activities from abstract algebra are not intended to be transported and used with secondary students learning algebra.

3. Development of mathematical knowledge for teaching

Up to this point, I have discussed mathematical knowledge for teaching primarily by describing various distinctions that have
been or might be pertinent for such discussions. Shulman distinguished CK from PCK; Ball et al. further differentiated each into a total
of six sub-domains; in this paper, I use a distinction between local and nonlocal mathematical neighborhoods to explore knowledge
for teaching. To some degree these all carve out a different scope for discussing such knowledge. In contrast to drawing distinctions

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about the different types or kinds of knowledge, Silverman and Thompson (2008) considered how such knowledge would develop.
Their work is orthogonal to (not at odds with) these other approaches.
In this paper, I draw on Silverman and Thompson’s (2008) cognitive model for the development of mathematical knowledge for
teaching as the primary mechanism for considering nonlocal knowledge and its implications on teaching practice. In particular, I
adopt and modify the two steps of their cognitive model to consider the implications that it has for conceptualizing nonlocal
mathematics knowledge in relation to teaching. Silverman and Thompson’s (2008) model posited that personally powerful mathe-
matical understandings–which they related to Simon’s (2006) notion of key developmental understandings (KDUs)–were the first step
toward the development of mathematical knowledge for teaching. Simon (2006) described KDUs as a “conceptual advance… a
change in [one’s] ability to think about and/or perceive particular mathematical relationships” (p. 362). In other words, KDUs are
mathematically powerful understandings that change perceptions about content, effect ontological shifts in understanding, and in-
fluence mathematical connections. According to Silverman and Thompson (2008), however, while such understandings are math-
ematically powerful, they are not intrinsically pedagogically powerful–they only have pedagogical potential. A second step, of
transforming such understandings into having pedagogical power–which then affect classroom practice-was necessary for developing
mathematical knowledge for teaching. They drew on cognitive ideas from Piaget to identify ways of accomplishing such a trans-
formation.

4. Nonlocal mathematics and pedagogical potential

In this section and the next, I adapt their two-step cognitive model for developing mathematical knowledge for teaching to
consider how knowledge of nonlocal mathematics interacts with the teaching of local mathematics.
First, we consider personally powerful mathematical understandings. In accord with Silverman and Thompson (2008), one of the
primary mechanisms by which connections to teaching are viewed has to do with teachers’ own mathematical understandings. More
specifically, with regard to mathematics outside what one teaches–the nonlocal mathematical neighborhood–I adapt the first step in
their cognitive model in a specific way: teachers’ understanding about nonlocal mathematical ideas must serve as a personally
powerful understanding for the (local) content they teach. This is to say that knowledge of nonlocal mathematics becomes potentially
productive for teaching at the moment that such knowledge alters teachers’ perceptions of or ontological understandings about the
local content they teach. In Piaget's (1952) terms, one’s understanding of local mathematical ideas needs to accommodate for how
nonlocal mathematical ideas may interact with and shape their understanding or perception of local content.
This adaptation is aligned with their notions about the development of mathematical knowledge and is a natural extension of the
cognitive model, but it is also very different from other perspectives in mathematics education about the potential role and utility of
teachers’ nonlocal mathematical knowledge. In order to contrast my proposed adaptation about the development of mathematical
knowledge for teaching from nonlocal mathematical knowledge (in Section 4.3), I first provide two other common perspectives about
the role of advanced mathematics with respect to secondary teaching (in Sections 4.1 and 4.2).

4.1. Nonlocal (advanced) mathematics as related to mathematics’ sake

First, some would argue that teachers should learn mathematics beyond what they are going to teach because they should.
Mathematics, regardless of whether it relates to future teaching, is important. Shulman (1986) himself suggested teachers should
have understanding at least equal to that of the subject matter major. The most compelling arguments for this have something to do
with the presumed development of “mathematical confidence” or improved “disciplinary knowledge.” That is, the essential role of
learning more advanced mathematics–i.e., mathematics beyond what they will be teaching–is to build a degree of confidence in their
knowledge of and about the subject. Such confidence, notably, does have potential teaching benefits–such as feeling more com-
fortable fielding student questions, or fostering more flexible approaches to teaching (Brown & Borko, 1992). Better disciplinary
knowledge also may result in improved teaching with regard to having students engage in meaningful mathematical processes.
Indeed, Zazkis and Leikin (2010) and Even (2011) both reported that for secondary teachers this was one of the primary benefits that
their study of advanced mathematics played in their teaching. However, such arguments, which, for the most part, are completely
disconnected from the work that teachers do in the classroom, are met with a healthy degree of skepticism. There are certainly plenty
of other opportunities for teachers to acquire confidence in and a broader disciplinary understanding about mathematics. Un-
doubtedly, it at least becomes more difficult to justify that a secondary teacher needs to know that Q (i): Q is a finite field extension
but R : Q is not–an item included by Heinze, Lindmeier, and Dreher (2015) to measure secondary teacher’s academic mathematical

Fig. 2. Depicting three perspectives on nonlocal mathematics.

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knowledge. I depict this perspective–which contends that nonlocal mathematics is important to study regardless of whether or not
advanced mathematics is connected to what one teaches–by the two mathematical neighborhoods being completely disjoint (Fig. 2a).

4.2. Nonlocal (advanced) mathematics as related to local mathematics

Next, we consider a fairly prominent perspective that more advanced mathematics is important for teaching when it is related to
the local mathematics content. Perhaps the first to popularize this idea was Felix Klein, who wrote Elementary mathematics from an
advanced standpoint (1932). In this approach, Klein applied more advanced mathematical techniques to the content that the teachers
themselves would be teaching, as a means to connect the content being studied in advanced mathematics to the content of school
mathematics. The Conference Board of Mathematical Sciences’ Mathematical Education of Teachers II (CBMS, 2012) has a similar
stance, providing many examples about the kinds of connections between advanced and secondary mathematics. They include, for
example, that it would be “quite useful for prospective [secondary] teachers to see how C can be ‘built’ as a quotient of R [x ]” and
“Cardano’s method, and the algorithm for solving quartics by radicals can all be developed… as a preview to Galois theory” (p. 59).
Textbooks about “mathematics for secondary teachers” (e.g., Bremigan, Bremigan, & Lorch, 2011; Sultan & Artzt, 2011; Usiskin,
Peressini, Marchisotto, & Stanley, 2003) often exploit such connections, and similar approaches exist in more typical undergraduate
mathematics content course textbooks (i.e., Cuoco & Rotman, 2013). This perspective is perhaps summarized by Cuoco’s (2001)
principle for redesigning the undergraduate experience of prospective teachers: “Make connections to school mathematics” (p. 170).
At the heart of this perspective is a desire to make more advanced mathematical study related to the content that a teacher is
going to teach. Yet I regard the more general argument, that by the simple merit of some advanced topic–e.g., Galois Theory–being
related to the content of school mathematics that such knowledge is important for teachers, as tenuous. I do not presume such a
“trickle down” effect to teaching: that, as a by-product of learning how advanced mathematical ideas are (or can be) connected to
school mathematics, teachers will respond differently to instructional situations in the future (i.e., Wasserman, Fukawa-Connelly,
Villanueva, Mejia-Ramos and Weber (2017a); Wasserman et al. (2017c). In other words, simply because the content of advanced and
secondary mathematics may be connected does not imply that the teaching of secondary content changes. I depict this perspecti-
ve–which contends that nonlocal mathematics is important to study when it is connected to local mathematics content–by the two
mathematical neighborhoods being connected at several places (Fig. 2b).

4.3. Nonlocal (advanced) mathematics as related to teaching local mathematics

Although these two perspectives about advanced mathematics both have potential value, if one adopts Silverman and Thompson’s
(2008) model, the knowledge gained from nonlocal mathematics must serve as mathematically powerful understandings not (only)
for their knowledge of nonlocal mathematics, but for the teachers’ understanding of the local mathematics they teach. Essentially, the
first mechanism for bringing about connections to teaching is by tying the nonlocal mathematical knowledge as not-only-connected-
to but as fundamentally-important-for their own mathematical understanding of the local content they teach. That is, I see this as not
just any connections between the content of nonlocal and local mathematics (the second perspective), but as particular connections
that reshape one’s understanding of the local neighborhood. In what follows we consider an example, but I depict this perspecti-
ve–which contends that nonlocal mathematics becomes potentially important for teachers when it serves as a mathematically
powerful understanding for the local content they teach –by the overlapping local regions being altered (i.e., a new color) by this
connection (Fig. 2c). That is, the nonlocal mathematics has fundamentally changed–and not just simply been connected to–the
teacher’s understanding of ideas in the local mathematical neighborhood.
As an example, let’s consider the study of groups in abstract algebra. The first perspective would contend that studying groups is
inherently beneficial for teachers, regardless of whether or not teachers make connections between the study of groups and the
content they will teach. Essentially, by learning about algebraic structures such as groups, one becomes further acquainted with
foundational ideas in the discipline of mathematics. The second perspective would contend that studying groups is not inherently
useful; but by connecting groups to school mathematics content its study would be valuable for teachers. In this sense, one might
make connections that (Z , + ) is a group, that (Q, × ) is not a group but (Q − {0}, × ) is one; one might identify group structures in
modular arithmetic and how those inform number theoretic concepts; one might recognize arithmetic with polynomials as having
group structures; one might realize that there must be unique identity and inverse elements in groups, etc. The point is that there are
many possible connections between the study of groups in abstract algebra and the content of school mathematics. The third per-
spective is not opposed to any of the connections in the second perspective, but entails the additional caveat that these connections
fundamentally shape one’s understanding of the local mathematics content. If recognizing (Z , + ) is a group profoundly changes one’s
understanding of integer arithmetic, then great–although I cannot think of a great example for what that might look like at the
moment. But suppose instead that one learns about the four axioms of a group, and then realizes that it is precisely these four axioms
that allow for the existence of algebraic solution approaches to linear equations (in that group). In this situation, one’s perception
about solving basic linear equations from school mathematics, such as x + 7 = 12, might change (e.g., Wasserman, 2014). The
specific steps, including the ‘cancellation’ process that occurs as an element and its inverse form the identity element may take on
additional meaning. Or, perhaps after studying inverses in groups, one realizes that there is a consistent meaning across usages in
school mathematics. One’s understanding about the meaning of ‘inverse function’ may shift to allow for recognition of a set (the set of
invertible functions) and an operation (composition). The statement, f ∘f −1 (x ) = f −1 ∘f (x ) = x , may take on a different mean-
ing–perhaps recognizing that the ‘x’ at the end must be indicative of an identity function, i (x ) = x . Indeed, maybe that recognition
helps reconcile what ‘cancellation’ in the expression would mean and why the result is 5. Regardless, what is important in the

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third perspective is that the advanced mathematics not just be connected to secondary content but also serve as a mathematically
powerful understanding for reconceptualizing that content. This notion that future study can profoundly shape and influence pre-
vious understandings can also be related to the notion of backward transfer (i.e., Hohensee, 2014), which, generally speaking,
explores how prior knowledge changes as new knowledge is built upon it. I point out that this third perspective is different from
simply having nonlocal knowledge serve to orient oneself in the mathematical landscape (e.g., Ball, 2009) or from applying more
advanced mathematical techniques to school mathematics (e.g., Klein, 1932). Essentially, in accord with the cognitive model (the
third perspective), I argue that very little that could be productive for teaching will transpire unless the nonlocal knowledge serves as
a mathematically powerful understanding for the local content.

5. Nonlocal mathematics and pedagogical power

This third perspective–nonlocal mathematics as related to teaching local mathematics–has been studied less, but, I believe, has the
most potential for connection to classroom teaching due to its origination in a cognitive model for developing mathematical
knowledge for teaching. Notably, the landscapes depicted in Fig. 2 are intended to portray distinctions between mathematical ideas
and the relationships between them. And while the local neighborhood is defined in relation to the content one teaches, it is about the
mathematical ideas in that neighborhood, and not about the pedagogical approaches one employs during teaching. So the third
perspective (Fig. 2c), for which such mathematically powerful understandings altered one’s understanding about local content, still
only provides a sense of pedagogical potential. According to Silverman and Thompson’s (2008) model, a second stage, of trans-
forming them into understandings that have pedagogical power–i.e., actually influence classroom practice–still remains. And to
depict this influence on classroom practice, we will need to differentiate the teaching of local mathematics from the local neigh-
borhood of mathematics. In what follows, I elaborate on three different, albeit not mutually exclusive, ways of thinking about how
such knowledge of nonlocal mathematics might become pedagogically powerful.

5.1. On specific local mathematics content areas

One of the ways that knowledge of nonlocal mathematics might influence the teaching of local mathematics is in specific content
areas. For instance, consider the Algebra I teacher for whom the concept of derivative from Calculus is nonlocal to the content of
linear functions, slopes, and rates of change being taught. The teaching of these three specific content areas may be influenced by the
teacher’s nonlocal knowledge.
First, the teacher’s knowledge about the derivative concept must be serving as a mathematically powerful understanding for these
content areas–that is, the teacher’s understanding about linear functions, slopes, and rates of change must have been meaningfully
transformed by their knowledge of derivatives. For example, perhaps the teacher recognizes the interval of change as being key in
differentiating average and instantaneous rates of change–i.e., average rate of change is calculated over an interval of some length
whereas instantaneous rate of change is calculated over an interval of no length (understood as the limit as some length approaches
zero). Indeed, within the realm of linear functions, one might recognize that average and instantaneous rates of change are always
one in the same, whereas with other functions this need not be the case. That is, although all differentiable functions (including
linear) are locally linear, linear functions are also globally linear–this “always-constant” rate of change, i.e., the slope, is what
characterizes linear functions. Here, the teacher’s knowledge of derivatives is serving as a mathematically powerful understanding for
linear functions, slopes, and rates of change.
To become pedagogically powerful, this knowledge must influence their teaching–and in this case, we are talking about the
teaching of these three specific content areas. For example, more often than not, when students are asked to compute slope, the given
values are integers. Indeed, students often view the quantity of slope in terms of two integers as though they were separate, as “rise”
and “run”–not as one rational number (“rise”/“run”), the rate of their covariation. Thus, pedagogical power might look like the
teacher having students consider computing the average rate of change of a linear function at various intervals of change. This would
perhaps lend some insight into the key characteristic of linear functions–that over any interval, the rate of change is constant.
Hopefully this would include some non-integer ones, but also, specifically, this might include increasingly small intervals over which
to compute slope. This reinforces the idea that any piece of a line, no matter how small, can be used to determine its linear DNA (i.e.,
its slope), but it also prepares students to think about rate of change as the interval (Δx) becomes increasingly small as is done in
Calculus. In addition, a teacher might also consider modeling a curved function with a number of linear segments. This sort of task
could be used to support learning about rate of change with linear functions, but it would also provide an opportunity, similar to an
actual curved function, to differentiate between an overall average rate of change and other rates of change. These examples illustrate
what nonlocal knowledge becoming pedagogically powerful might look like, particularly with respect to influencing the teaching of
specific content areas.
In previous work, Wasserman, 2016 argued that understanding abstract algebraic structures (e.g., groups, fields, rings) might
influence school mathematics instruction in four specific content areas: arithmetic properties, inverses, structure of sets, and solving
equations. In addition to these areas as having prominent mathematical connections (some of which were mentioned pre-
viously)–ones that might fundamentally transform one’s understanding of each of these school mathematics content areas–it was
posited through exemplification that the teaching of each of these four content areas might look substantively different. That is, within
these four specific content areas, a teachers’ knowledge of nonlocal algebraic structures could have pedagogical power for their
classroom instruction.

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5.2. On specific pedagogical actions in teaching mathematics

Another way that knowledge of nonlocal mathematics might influence the teaching of local mathematics is in some specific
pedagogical ways. There might be some practices, as a whole, that teachers with an understanding about nonlocal mathematical ideas
engage in, for which teachers, otherwise, would not. For example, Wasserman, Mamolo and Ribeiro Jakobsen (2015) clarified a few
specific teaching actions via the distinction between the local versus nonlocal mathematical neighborhood. Two of the classroom
actions-foreshadowing and abridging–were specifically in response to the teacher being aware of nonlocal mathematical complexities.
Foreshadowing, for example, was exemplified by a teacher intentionally introducing a degree of complexity to an idea in its
infancy, as a means to help prepare students for future conceptual transitions. (See, for example, the derivative discussion in the
previous section.) This is similar to the notion of unpacking (e.g., Ball & Bass, 2000), but it is not necessarily about unpacking the
nuances of the concepts being learned, but rather designing tasks that hint at and foreshadow impending conceptual transitions. As
another example of foreshadowing (elaborated in Wasserman et al., 2015 but explained briefly here), one might consider an ele-
mentary teacher's teaching about the perimeters of rectangles and squares as being influenced by his/her nonlocal understanding of
circumference with circles. Essentially, the teacher might recognize key aspects that make circumference calculations more diffi-
cult–which include the fact that the measurement used to determine circumference (the radius) is not part of the circumference, and
that multiplicative (not additive) reasoning is necessary with circles. This nonlocal knowledge might shape the teacher’s perception of
computing perimeters of rectangles and squares, and become pedagogically powerful if he/she designs tasks for students with rec-
tangles or squares that foreshadow these impending conceptual transitions. That is, the teacher intentionally introduces some ad-
ditional complexity, such as giving internal measurements of these quadrilaterals and asking students to determine the perimeter, or
finding ways to necessitate multiplicative (and not additive) reasoning to compute the perimeter, etc. The discussion here is not to
claim that elementary teachers do not already do this; rather, it intends to point out these teaching practices as being potential
influenced by their nonlocal mathematical knowledge. The key point here is that pedagogical power in relation to nonlocal math-
ematical knowledge might take the form of specific kinds of pedagogical actions, such as foreshadowing.
The notion of abridging was another kind of pedagogical action, which similarly draws on nonlocal mathematical knowledge, but
has an opposing pedagogical response: of hiding or removing complexities so as not to unnecessarily confuse students by over-
complicating an idea. This is similar to Bruner’s (1960) notion that any idea can be explained to nearly any audience in some
intellectually honest way; McCrory et al. (2012) used the term trimming to describe an analogous practice. Returning to the example
about the elementary teacher and perimeters of rectangles and squares, consider the reasonable statement that “the perimeter is the
sum of all the side lengths.” Although true in the context of rectangles and squares, the statement makes less sense with circles. In this
case, pedagogical power from nonlocal mathematical knowledge might look like avoiding such statements, and instead focusing on
perimeter as the distance around a two-dimensional object, and the process of summing side lengths as one possible way to compute
this distance. In other words, in this example, rather than intentionally make students aware of additional complexity (e.g., by having
them consider a circle), the teacher’s modified statements avoided the potential complexity all together. Yet, their modification also
framed perimeter in a way that would remain valid in future nonlocal contexts as well. Again, this is not to claim that elementary
teachers do not already do this; rather, the key point is that there might be particular kinds of pedagogical actions, such as abridging,
that are indicative of how nonlocal mathematical knowledge might “take shape” in the teaching of local mathematics.
Both foreshadowing and abridging represent potential instructional responses that are influenced by a teachers’ knowledge of
nonlocal mathematics. These practices transcend particular content areas and might be evident across various contexts. These two
practices are certainly not the only such pedagogical actions, but they describe at least two particular ones whose influence might be
from knowing nonlocal mathematics.

5.3. On general mathematics processes

Lastly, since the description of local and nonlocal mathematics does not clearly situate mathematical processes, principles, or
ideals–e.g., reasoning and proof, problem solving–we discuss these separately here. These processes describe ways in which people
should be engaged with mathematics; they transcend specific content areas, and represent overarching notions that have disciplinary
significance. This is very much related to Shulman’s (1987) description that teachers should “understand the structures of subject
matter, the principles of conceptual organization, and the principles of inquiry… How are new ideas added and deficient ones
dropped?” (p. 9). In this sense, all of mathematics–from early childhood memories and elementary classrooms to graduate cour-
ses–can be a place to learn important mathematical processes; however, I regard the study of more advanced mathematics as po-
tentially helpful for further refining and grasping some of these disciplinary ideals. This is because advanced courses typically
represent content that has been investigated to a meaningful end, and, as such, provide a particularly good place to improve one’s
own sense about mathematics–by considering the ways in which mathematics has been pursued rigorously. Teachers at all levels need
to help students understand what doing mathematics is all about.
As an example, Real Analysis is a proof-based course that attends to a rigorous development of real numbers and real-valued
functions, and, among other things, sets the foundation for important ideas in Calculus. Since the content of real analysis–indeed
more so than many other mathematics courses–is extremely explicit with both definitions and assumptions, and produces rigorous
deductive arguments, interaction with this nonlocal mathematics can serve as a place to strengthen these sorts of disciplinary
practices. And although this disciplinary development might occur naturally for some students, it does not always happen by default.
As such, Wasserman et al., 2017a designed tasks for secondary teachers in a real analysis course to help make these facets of
disciplinary practice more explicit. In addition, they were also connected unambiguously to the work that teachers have to do.

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Namely, by being explicit with definitions and assumptions, one can learn to attend to some of the implicit ideas that often lie beneath
students’ (and teachers’) statements. By revealing the necessity of each condition in various definitions and statements in real
analysis, one also can learn to listen for unstated and implicit conditions as they are evident in school mathematics settings. For
example, a secondary student might say something like, “Okay, so you’re saying if f (2) < 0 and f (3) > 0 , then we know there will at
least be one zero between x = 2 and x = 3?” In this case, a teacher who has learned the mathematical practice of being explicit about
conditions might recognize and attend to the implicit assumption about the continuity and domain of f in this student’s version of the
intermediate value theorem. “Hearing” these unstated and implicit ideas can inform more appropriate responses to student comments
and inquiries by a teacher–indicative of pedagogical power being realized in the classroom. In this sense, by engaging with nonlocal
mathematics, one’s own teaching of mathematics might intentionally utilize and foster these sorts of disciplinary processes more
explicitly.

6. Nonlocal mathematics influencing teaching practice

To summarize, knowledge of nonlocal mathematics can influence both teachers’ understanding of and teaching of local content.
The first mechanism is to have such knowledge serve as a mathematically powerful understanding for the local content a teacher
teaches. These mathematically powerful understandings might regard specific content or more general disciplinary processes. Five
forms of knowing advanced mathematics that might be mathematically powerful in terms of shaping one’s understanding of local
school mathematics content are posited in Stockton and Wasserman (2017). The second mechanism is for these mathematically
powerful understandings to become pedagogically powerful by influencing instructional practices. This paper has specifically out-
lined three ways that this transformation may take place: on specific content areas, on specific pedagogical actions, and on general
mathematics processes. Although these are not necessarily mutually exclusive areas, they depict some of the ways in which nonlocal
mathematics might influence the teaching of local mathematics. Regardless, in this approach, being explicit about the potential
connections to teaching is fundamentally important in the realm of studying nonlocal mathematics.
Fig. 3 summarizes the theoretical considerations for content outside the local content being taught as potentially influencing the
teaching of local content. Notably, a “hole” has been created within the mathematical landscape to make room for ideas connected
not just to understanding local content, but to teaching local content. In this approach, advanced mathematics must serve as a
mathematically powerful understanding (abbreviated as MPUs in Fig. 3)–something that fundamentally transforms (i.e., a new color)
one’s own understanding of the local mathematical neighborhood. These understandings, either regarding specific local content or
broader disciplinary processes, serve as a first step, which then must be transformed into having pedagogical power. This second step
means that they then influence the teaching of local mathematics, observed either in the teaching of specific content areas, in the
inclusion of specific pedagogical practices, or in the incorporation of more general disciplinary processes in instruction.

7. Discussion and conclusion

Conceptualizing a knowledge base for mathematics teaching is a difficult endeavour. In particular, in the teaching and learning of
mathematics at least, ideas that are introduced at one point are often revisited and revised at later points. Because of this, mathe-
matics teachers in particular need to be attentive not just to the development of the mathematics ideas for which they are responsible
for teaching, but also to the development of these ideas both previously and afterwards. In this sense, knowledge outside the scope of
what one teaches–the nonlocal mathematical neighborhood–is especially important for mathematics teachers. And yet much of the

Fig. 3. Nonlocal mathematical knowledge interacting with local teaching.

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N.H. Wasserman Journal of Mathematical Behavior xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx

work around teacher knowledge has explored teachers’ depth of knowledge of the local mathematics they teach (e.g., Ball et al.,
2008), or other ways in which content might be evident in teachers’ classroom actions (e.g., Rowland et al., 2005). By distinguishing
between the local and nonlocal mathematical neighborhoods, we have been able to consider more explicitly the role that knowledge
outside the scope of what one teaches may play in the teaching of local mathematics. Notably, because neighborhoods are omni-
directional, this includes ideas that are behind and beside as well as beyond what one teaches. I elaborate on four pertinent points of
discussion.
First, the adaption of Silverman and Thompson’s (2008) cognitive model provides a slightly different approach to thinking about
the utility of nonlocal mathematics. Namely, nonlocal mathematics becomes potentially useful precisely at the point when it influ-
ences and transforms one’s understanding of the local mathematics that one teaches. That is, mathematical study for teachers is not
pertinent “just because,” nor is it pertinent when there is any connection between nonlocal and school mathematics content, but
rather when a specific connection serves as a mathematically powerful understanding for one’s own sense of the local mathematics
one teaches. It becomes actually useful, i.e., pedagogically powerful, at the point when these transformed understandings influence
and shape a teacher’s approach to teaching. The examples given previously in the three sections (on specific content areas, on specific
pedagogical actions, and on general processes) describe some explicit instances where such knowledge might fundamentally influ-
ence one’s instruction. As a more general statement, nonlocal mathematical knowledge might, for example, inform a teachers’ choices
for sequencing specific content, impact what specific concepts are emphasized, alter their exposition of specific ideas, shape ways
they transition and prepare students for future ideas via specific pedagogical actions, or shape the mathematical processes by which
they engage students in learning. All of these would be pedagogically powerful ways in which to leverage knowledge of nonlocal
mathematics for teaching local content.
Second, in this paper I have primarily given examples where the nonlocal mathematics consisted of ideas from advanced
mathematics (e.g., abstract algebra) and the local mathematical neighborhood was primarily around secondary mathematics content.
This was fitting in that this is where the majority of my work has been, but the purpose in doing so also related to providing examples
where, to some degree, the nonlocal mathematics would very clearly be nonlocal. However, in doing so, I have also primarily
provided examples for which: i) the nonlocal mathematics is “beyond” the local content; and ii) the conception of the local math-
ematical neighborhood is relatively broad. That is, for the most part, these examples have conceptualized the local neighborhood for
an Algebra I teacher as the entirety of the content that teacher will end up teaching in a year. However, the definitions and ideas
introduced have intentionally been more flexible. For example, I regard it as possible for nonlocal ideas “behind” (or “beside”) the
local content to similarly influence one’s mathematical understanding of and teaching of local content. In addition, I regard the
flexibility of the construct in terms of grain size–not just as one year but also finer grain sizes for the local content being taught–to be
advantageous. In this sense, we can think more broadly not just about how study of advanced mathematics might influence school
mathematics teaching, but more globally about how a teacher’s mathematical knowledge of ideas surrounding a particular topic
might be shaping and influencing their practice. For example, one could investigate how a unit on solving linear equations might be
y−y
shaped by a subsequent unit on quadratics. Might certain “forms” of linear equations (e.g., y = mx + b, Ax + By = C, x − x1 = m ,
1
y = m (x − x1) + y1, etc.) be emphasized more and others emphasized less? Indeed, such investigations might provide interesting
insights about the relationship between nonlocal mathematical ideas and the teaching of local content that could be used to broaden
and sharpen the ideas explored in this paper.
Third, I see the distinction between local and nonlocal mathematics as productive particularly because it organizes the con-
versation about teacher knowledge to align with the fact that the act of teaching deeply involves teachers in the local mathematics
that they teach. That is, it is practical to discuss ways in which a teacher should know the local mathematics they teach, as well as
practical to discuss ways in which nonlocal knowledge might also shape their instruction. However, while I regard this distinction as
productive, I also acknowledge that describing the set of mathematical ideas within a local neighborhood is a potential difficulty in
operationalizing these notions. Because there is no precise “distance metric” between mathematical ideas, determining whether a
particular idea lies within the local or nonlocal neighborhood has some subjective aspects. The notions of “temporal proximity” (the
degree of separation between when ideas are typically studied in relation to one another) and “interconnectedness” (the degree of
necessity between ideas studied in relation to one another) provide some bases for making distinctions. And for a number of
mathematical ideas, which neighborhood they fall into can be relatively clear–i.e., abstract algebra is certainly nonlocal to algebra in
school mathematics. But other examples may be more muddled. Again, the subjective aspects also provide some benefits in terms of
allowing for more flexible interpretations of grain size, but this is certainly a potential limitation as well. Overall, however, although I
recognize potentially troublesome spots, I regard the basic distinctions as still being productive in terms of differentiating the
mathematical knowledge that can shape one’s teaching of local content.
Fourth, because many of the examples of nonlocal mathematics were in relation to advanced mathematics, one of the primary
implications from this paper is for considering how the teaching of more advanced mathematics might take place as a part of a
teacher preparation program. The takeaway is not necessarily that teachers need fewer advanced mathematics courses, but rather
that the teaching of these courses needs to be more informed by and related to teacher’s future professional needs. To that end, these
ideas suggest and support a model for teaching advanced mathematics that explicitly links course content both to ideas in secondary
mathematics as well as to implications on the teaching of secondary mathematics. In accord with this, Wasserman et al., 2017a
proposed an instructional model for teaching advanced mathematics courses, of “building up from” and “stepping down to” teaching
practice. That is, the study of advanced (nonlocal) mathematics content is book-ended by connections to the teaching of secondary
mathematics and secondary mathematics content. Namely, students first explore a pedagogical situation–one for which the advanced
mathematics might shape the particular instructional approach–as well as some of the local mathematical topics around that

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situation. Next, they engage in learning the advanced (nonlocal) mathematics. Afterwards, the key ideas learned from the nonlocal
mathematics are then connected explicitly both to the secondary mathematics–indicating how the idea from advanced mathematics
might be mathematically powerful for understanding the secondary content–and then also to how those ideas might play out to
inform the teacher’s response to the pedagogical situation. In other words, instead of hoping for a trickle-down effect, one ramifi-
cation of our adaptation of the cognitive model is that the teachers’ development of and understandings about advanced (nonlocal)
mathematics must not only relate to the content of school mathematics, but also explicitly be related to the teaching of school mathe-
matics content. Although this was described in ways specific to thinking about advanced mathematics, the same kinds of principles
would apply to other nonlocal mathematical ideas. In teacher education, helping pre-service and in-service teachers see the con-
nections to the local content they (will) teach, especially in ways that fundamentally alter their understanding of that local content,
and then providing explicit ways that such knowledge might influence their actions as a teacher could help foster the development of
nonlocal mathematical knowledge, for teaching.
The field of teacher education as a whole must better identify and use desired pedagogical changes–in specific content areas,
pedagogical actions, or general disciplinary processes–to help build and develop teachers’ key understandings regarding nonlocal
content in ways that can be pedagogically powerful. In this way, studying and learning about content outside the scope of what one
teaches shifts from being unrelated and irrelevant by dint of content, and more about broader implications on one’s own under-
standings of the local content one teaches while also explicitly linked to considering its influence on one’s approach to teaching such
content.

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