Using Concept Maps in Teacher Education: Building Connections Among Multiple Mathematical Knowledge Bases and Assessing Mathematical Understanding

Abstract

A role of teacher education programs is to provide support for prospective teachers to develop professional skills that are specific to and required for teaching. Mathematics teacher educators may provide opportunities for prospective teachers to recognize and validate children’s many ways of knowing mathematics, which is especially powerful for addressing the needs of students who are marginalized in mathematics classrooms. This study investigates how 20 prospective elementary teachers in a mathematics methods course made connections among children’s multiple mathematical knowledge bases in their thinking about assessing children’s understanding of fractions. This paper focuses on using concept-mapping tasks as a research tool and a pedagogical tool in supporting prospective teachers in addressing the needs of marginalized students through building stronger connections among concepts related to children’s multiple mathematical knowledge bases, teaching practices, and mathematics content. Findings suggest that prospective teachers made more connections to children’s multiple mathematical knowledge bases in their end of semester concept maps; however, these connections used more general language than specific examples of children’s multiple mathematical knowledge bases. One potential entry point to better support these connections involves emphasizing high-level tasks as a concept related to teaching practices that connects to both children’s mathematical thinking and children’s lives and experiences. Considerations and implications for teacher education include a focus on the role of assessment to serve the needs of all students, especially those who have been historically marginalized in the mathematics classroom, and explicit attention to whose multiple mathematical knowledge bases are represented in concept maps.