Supporting Preservice Teachers’ Skill of Crafting a Pedagogical Response That Builds on Children’s Mathematical Thinking

• In Event: Saturday Roundtable 7:45 am
  In Roundtable Session: Teacher Noticing, Language of Thinking, and Pedagogical Expertise in Mathematics (Table 34)

Abstract

This study aimed at understanding how pre-service teachers (PST) learn to be responsive to children’s mathematical thinking. This qualitative case study was conducted in a Pedagogical Content Knowledge for Teaching Elementary Mathematics-I. The task structure and discussion scaffolding questions were the key interventions used to enhance PSTs’ development of pedagogical judgment and professional noticing. The invisible work of deciding how to respond and PSTs’ judgment drawing on their mathematical knowledge for teaching is unpacked in the learning community meanwhile PSTs were supported to develop a vision of possible ways of leveraging children’s sense-making of mathematics. The preliminary results indicate a cyclical rather than a linear relationship between the skills of attending, interpreting, and deciding how to respond.

Authors

• Burcu Alapala, University of Missouri

• Hala N. Ghousseini, University of Wisconsin - Madison