CAREER: Examining prospective teachers' learning of three mathematics teaching practices-posing, interpreting, and responding-during teacher preparation

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This project focuses on three mathematics teaching practices --posing mathematical problems, responding to students' mathematical ideas, and interpreting students' mathematical thinking -- that are discussed in teacher preparation courses as practices that directly affect student learning. These practices are essential to the improvement of mathematics teaching and learning and demand a deep understanding of mathematics in the context of teaching. Research has found these practices to be underdeveloped in prospective teachers of mathematics and to be challenging to learn. In spite of the amount of attention they tend to receive in teacher preparation courses little is known about how these practices develop at the beginning stages of a teacher's career. This means that the field of mathematics teacher education has incomplete knowledge about how best to help prospective teachers move towards more sophisticated understandings and enactments of these practices. The research and educational agenda proposed in this project are critical to improving the design and implementation of mathematics teacher preparation programs and experiences. This project will study the practices of posing, interpreting, and responding using cross-sectional and longitudinal research designs. The cross-sectional study will characterize the focal practices at each of three stages in the elementary teacher preparation program at Michigan State University. The longitudinal study will focus on the development of the focal practices as prospective elementary school teachers move through the teacher preparation program and into their first and second year of teaching. Factors that afford and constrain the development of these practices will also be examined through in-depth case studies of ten participants. The educational goal of the project is to provide professional development for mathematics teacher education instructors. This professional development will consist of regular instructor meetings throughout the length of the project that will parallel the activities of the research group. As the research group works to develop the research instruments, for example, the instructor group will focus on adapting the research instruments to their teacher education classrooms. The goal of these educational activities is to, in collaboration with practicing mathematics education instructors, make the research tools and findings generated by this project useful to the teaching practice of mathematics teacher educators.