Investigating the Relationship Between Professional Noticing and Specialized Content Knowledge

Abstract

Professional noticing of children’s mathematical thinking as conceptualized by Jacobs et al. (J Res Math Educ 41(2):169–202, 2010) includes attention to and interpretation of children’s mathematical thinking, and deciding how to respond instructionally. In order to interpret a child’s mathematical thinking, a teacher draws on her or his mathematical knowledge for teaching (MKT) (Ball et al. in J Teach Educ 59(5):389–407, 2008). This research study focuses on the relationship between elementary preservice interns’ development of MKT and their engagement with professionally noticing their students’ mathematical thinking through analysis of their students’ work samples. An integrated professional noticing and MKT framework for simultaneous measurement is applied to the research study. Four preservice interns placed in a first-grade classroom participated in the study. A sequence of three professional learning tasks (PLTs) focused on the preservice interns’ analysis of their students’ multi-digit addition and subtraction work was developed. Results show specialized content knowledge (SCK), a subset of MKT, as an integral part of professional noticing. The results suggest that in situated contexts focused on developing SCK, preservice interns can increase their engagement with professionally noticing their students’ mathematical thinking.