Pedagogies of practice and opportunities to learn about classroom mathematics discussions

Abstract

In this paper, we argue that to prepare pre-service teachers for doing complex work of teaching like leading classroom mathematics discussions requires an implementation of different pedagogies of teacher education in deliberate ways. In supporting our argument, we use two frameworks: one curricular and one pedagogical. The curricular framework is based on the work of Hammerness et al. (Preparing teachers for a changing world. What teachers should learn and be able to do. San Francisco, Jossey-Bass Educational Series, pp 358–388, 2005) outlining four main goals of teacher learning: a vision of practice, knowledge of students and content, dispositions for using this knowledge, and a repertoire of practices and tools. The pedagogical framework is based on the work of Grossman et al. (Teach Teach Theory Pract 15(2):273–289, 2009a; Teach Coll Record 111(9):2055–2100, 2009b) outlining three pedagogies of practice: representations, decompositions, and approximations of practice. We use the curricular framework to examine the opportunities for teacher learning that were afforded by these three different pedagogies of practice in a unit on leading classroom mathematics discussion in a secondary mathematics methods course. We use evidence from our analysis to show how the coordination of those pedagogies of practice is better than any one of them in addressing important goals for teacher learning about classroom discussions.