Preservice Teachers' Ethnic Backgrounds, Knowledge of Student Understanding, and Use of Whole-Number Representations

• In Event: Fairmont Roundtable Session Eighteen
  In Roundtable Session: STEM Spirals, Scaffolds, and Student Understanding (Table 8)

Abstract

The quality of teachers' understanding of student mathematics thinking presumably shapes the quality of their mathematics representations. Their ethnic backgrounds shape their learning to teach. This study investigated whether preservice teachers with different ethnic backgrounds developed their understanding of students' thinking about whole numbers in mathematics method courses differently. It also examines whether their knowledge development shaped their use of representations in teaching whole numbers in their practicum differently. It revealed that the methods course significantly impacted their understanding of students' thinking about whole numbers and the kinds and quality of their representations in classrooms were similar, regardless of their ethnicity. However, Latino preservice teachers more frequently used verbal representations and set number attributes in teaching than their White peers.

Authors

• Raymond Flores, Texas Tech University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Minju Yi, Texas Tech University
  Presenting Author

• Jian Wang, Texas Tech University
  Presenting Author

• Taylor Darwin, Texas Tech University
  Presenting Author

• Jasmine Torain, Texas Tech University
  Presenting Author

• Hyunjin Shim, Texas Tech University
  Presenting Author