PME-NA

“I know it is useful but…” Pre-service Elementary Teachers’ Inclination To Use Theories In Mathematics Classroom Practices

• In Event: From Theory to Practice

Description

Theories are an important part of teacher education in preparing teachers to implement student-centered teaching approaches. This paper investigated preservice teachers’(PSTs) inclination to use theoretical evidence in their classroom practices and how such inclination changed over a mathematics methods course. Survey data collected at the beginning and the end of the course and PSTs’ class assignments were data sources for this study. Results suggested pre-service teachers (PSTs) developed more critical stances in their inclination to use theories to inform their teaching or understand students’ learning over the method course. Specifically, they tend to draw frameworks of classroom teaching features and the teaching strategies implied by learning theories in future teaching. Suggestions were given around how to support PSTs to grow as critical and competent consumers of theories.

Authors

• Boran Yu, UNC Chapel Hill

• Dionne Cross Cross Francis, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill