Critical Thinking and Mathematics Teaching and Learning

Abstract

The purpose of this chapter was to investigate pre-service teachers' noticing of children's critical thinking and views towards eliciting and using students' critical thinking in mathematics teaching. A mixed method study was used to provide a range of perspectives on pre-service teachers' views towards mathematics. The results indicated that the pre-service teachers initially held beliefs that mathematics teaching and learning consist of transferring information and students absorbing and memorizing information. The pre-service teachers based their instructional responses on experiences they had as students in elementary mathematics classrooms. The pre-service teachers described what they had observed about teaching mathematics as the ideal without regard for how the teaching behaviors they observed might influence children's critical thinking about mathematics. After completing a mathematics methods course, the pre-service teachers held beliefs more consistent with a reform-oriented classroom and demonstrated growth in their ability to notice children's mathematics thinking.