Pre-service Math Teachers Research Articles

Improving professional training of pre-service math teachers on the basis of massive open online courses

Research goal: to analyze the content and structure of instructivist massive open online courses of mathematics and computer sciences (MOOC) offered by some leading universities and based on the platforms Udacity, Coursers and edX. Research objectives: to determine the main directions of using MOOC in the professional training of pre-service math teachers within the educational context of the pedagogical college. Object of research: professional training of pre-service math teachers. Subject of research: professional training of pre-service math teachers on the basis of massive open online courses. Research methods used: analysis of statistics and publications. Results of the research. The most useful courses have been singled out to be further offered for students and teachers of natural science and mathematics. The benefits and shortcoming of the analyzed courses have been weighed up. The experiment on practical application of MOOC in teaching and learning process of the 4-th and 5-th year students was conducted and the results are presented. Recommendations for the implementation of MOOC into the educational process have been formulated. The main conclusions and recommendations: MOOC appropriate to include support for the teaching of certain subjects; improving methods MOOC introduction in the educational process should be accompanied by retraining teachers to the development of existing and new courses.

An analysis on the pattern generalizations of the Turkish pre-service Mathematics teachers that are presented in a different structure and presentation

The pattern, which is a key concept in understanding the mathematical information and concepts, is the basis in comprehending mathematical relations and in understanding mathematical order and logic. The fact that students discover the relationships contained within the patterns and generalize them helps them develop their skills to better perceive the world around them. The major factors in the development of these skills are the math teachers. The objective of this study is to examine and analyze the pattern generalization performances and strategies of pre-service math teachers. A total of 221 pre-service teachers attending the secondary school mathematics teaching (1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th classes) participated in this study. It was found that in a pattern test prepared in different structures (linear, geometric, quadratic) and in different forms of presentations (table, figure, verbal, number), as the class level increased, so did the pattern generalization performances of the teacher candidates. It was also found out that asking patterns within different forms of presentations enabled the teacher candidates to understand the patterns better. Separately, rather than the forms of presentation, it can be stated that the performance to generalize patterns and the pattern structure are more effective. Key words: Structure of pattern, presentation of pattern, pre-service math teacher.

중등교사 임용시험 수학교과교육학 기출 문항 분석

This study aims at what is required knowledge and ability to pre-service math teachers in teacher certificate examination. First, the items are analyzed and among questions of discipline of mathematics education in the last five years are analyzed and classified. Second, an analytical framework suitable for item analysis is examined and the items are analysed by the analytical framework. Finally, helpful implications for discipline of mathematics education assessment can be drawn from this study. It is found that the discipline of mathematics education assessment has the following characteristics: 1) It assesses specific content of the assessment component; 2) It assesses a teacher's theoretical knowledge, practical knowledge and creative knowledge in terms of teaching ability; 3) There are six cognitive assessments; 4) There is an item for difficulty adjustment.

O papel do professor e do aluno frente ao uso de um software de geometria interativa: iGeom

Neste trabalho discute-se o papel de destaque que a Geometria Interativa (GI) tem adquirido no contexto do ensino de Geometria assistida por computador, enfatizando alguns dos benefícios da GI para professores e alunos. De um lado, auxilia o professor em sua tarefa de criar material didático mais interativo e desenvolver atividades que estimulam a curiosidade. De outro lado, proporciona ao aluno um ambiente no qual a postura participativa e a busca por desafios promovem a troca de experiências e a maturidade para compreender o conteúdo geométrico. Neste contexto, serão apresentados resultados de experiências didáticas realizadas em cursos de licenciatura em matemática e de extensão universitária para professores, utilizando um software de GI chamado iGeom. Além disso, introduz-se como soluções geométricas podem ser didaticamente apresentadas como algoritmos e como é possível implementar algoritmos geométricos com laços repetitivos de modo automático no iGeom facilitando a abordagem de conceitos matemáticos como progressões geométricas, somatórios, convergência, entre outros.

「수학교과교육론」 수업이 예비 중등 수학교사의 수학 및 수학교육에 대한 신념에 미치는 효과

The purpose of this study is to analyze whether mathematics education course can improve secondary pre-service math teacher` belief and correlation on pre-service math teacher` belief and mathematics education achievement. In order to achieve this purpose, the test was conducted to the subject of 34 pre-service secondary math teachers of the grade 2 and grade 4 who were chosen from H university in D city and we analyzed the results. Findings on this study are as follows. First, there was meaningful difference in the pre-service math teacher` belief with significant level of 0.05. This proved that mathematics education course was effective on improving pre-service math teacher` belief. Second, there was not meaningful correlation in the pre-service math teacher` belief and mathematics education achievement.

Preservice Mathematics Teachers’ Experiences about Function and Equation Concepts

The purpose of this study is to determine the experience of mathematics preservice teachers related to function and equation concepts and the relations between them. Determining preservice mathematics teachers’ understanding of function and equation concepts has great importance since it directly affects their future teaching careers. Data were collected by a questionnaire and semi-structured interviews and analyzed using existential- phenomenology. The results show that the experiences of preservice math teachers related to these concepts can be summarized under six different titles, namely, confusion of the definition of function with one-to-one and onto properties, relating it with daily life (exampling), failure to take the functioning conditions into account, the relation between the values which make the function zero and roots of the equation, multiple representations of functions and taking the defining set of functions and equations into account .

Preservice mathematics teachers’ concept images of polynomials

The purpose of this study is to determine the experience of mathematics preservice teachers’ concept images of polynomials and how these concept images are related to the formal definition of the concept of polynomial. Data were gathered by a questionnaire, semi-structured interviews, and fieldnotes. They were analyzed using existential-phenomenology. The results show that the experiences of preservice math teachers related to the concept of polynomial can be summarized under three categories namely accordance with formal definition, conflict with formal definition, and inverse operation of equation.

“I Actually Learned A Lot from This”: A Field Assignment to Prepare Future Preservice Math Teachers for Culturally Diverse Classrooms

Teacher education programs are cognizant of the need to prepare preservice teachers (PTs) to work effectively with children from diverse cultural backgrounds. Well‐constructedfield experiences can help PTs develop awareness and gain understanding of important cultural considerations related to effective teaching and learning (Sleeter, 2001). This paper describes a unique field assignment created for an Elementary Math Methods course in which 61 PTs were trained to conduct a semi‐structured interview with a student whose cultural background was different than their own. PTs transcribed their own interviews and completed a guided reflection on their experiences. Reflections were submitted and analyzed for emerging themes. Analyses suggest that the structured interview component of this field assignment provided PTs with increased insight into mathematics instruction and the learning needs of diverse students. We also discuss the value and limitations of this instructional innovation and propose avenues by which to continue to help PTs grow toward becoming culturally relevant pedagogists (Irvine, 2003).

Diagram Literacy in Preservice Math Teachers, Computer Science Majors, and Typical Undergraduates: The Case of Matrices, Networks, and Hierarchies

According to the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (2000), children need to learn how to create and use mathematical diagrams to represent and reason about phenomena in the world. The author proposes a model of diagram literacy that includes six types of knowledge required for diagrammatic competence - implicit, construction, similarity, structural, metacognitive, and translational. A study is reported that examined college students' diagram literacy for three interrelated mathematical diagrams - matrices, networks, and hierarchies. Three groups of students participated: preservice, secondary-level, math teachers; computer science majors; and typical undergraduates. The results of the study are reassuring in some ways concerning the level of diagram literacy possessed by students at the culmination of current K through 12 instruction and by teachers of future secondary students. However, the results also point to areas in which preservice math teachers should be better prepared if the goals for students' diagram literacy are to be met.

Control of Dialogue in Asynchronous Forums for Teachers: Implications for School Library Media Specialists

This study adds to the information on online educational sites by examining the deployment of power and status in an online professional development Web site for preservice and inservice math and science teachers. Initiation and continuation of threads in asynchronous discussion forums is viewed as a powerful activity and parallel to the control of discussion in face-to-face classrooms as an issue of control. Studies of two discussion forums on the same topic, one comprising mainly inservice teachers and the other comprising mainly preservice teachers, showed a significant difference in the number of threads initiated by men and by women, with men dominating. In addition, the threads initiated by men were much more likely to receive responses that continued the discussion, whereas those initiated by women were likely to end with that single post. Other features of educational forums such as flaming did not occur. I conclude that the more subtle features of power and control in online spaces are just as important as overt features in encouraging people to participate and discouraging people from participating in these forums.

Shaping the Teaching Self Through Autobiographical Narrative

As we study the forms of our own experience, not only are we searching for evidence of the external forces that have diminished us; we are also recovering our own possibilities. We work to remember, imagine, and realize ways of knowing and being that can span the chasm presently separating our public and private worlds. Madeline R. Grumet in Bitter Milk: Women and Teaching The Emergence of Autobiographical Narrative in Teacher Education In the past, autobiographical writing was often used in teacher education courses simply as a way to identify the concerns of pre-service teachers, to bring those concerns forward so that they might better be addressed (Parker and FitzGibbon.) Increasingly, teacher educators have recognized the importance of the individual's lived experience as relevant to the development of what he or she will bring to the classroom. Thus, the life histories of teachers have come to be seen as grounded experience for knowledge of teaching. Teacher educators across the disciplines have called for autobiographical writing as a way for prospective teachers to increase their teaching knowledge base, to make explicit for themselves knowledge about teaching and learning -- as they have experienced it. Rosenthal (1991) asked preservice science teachers to write their science autobiographies, their personal histories of learning science, of connecting with science. Pereira-Mendoza (1988) reported that he assigned a autobiography to his pre-service math teachers. Danielson (1989) asked her pre-service language arts teachers to write a literacy autobiography, to focus on their own learning to read and write, as a means of understanding the nature of language learning. The thinking is that if those who would teach can develop a critical distance from their own lived experiences with the content and skills of their subject, they can, perhaps, better assist their students in the mastery of their discipline. One Teacher Educator's Beginning As a doctoral student in Curriculum and Instruction at Virginia Tech in the 1980s, I was asked to write about my own high school experience in an assignment that Professor Robert Small called, Remembering High School. What did we notice as my classmates and I shared from those papers in our graduate seminar? Nearly everyone recalled something about a favorite or dreaded teacher's personality; memories of social interactions with friends and extracurricular activities also filled the pages; very little surfaced that was about the school curriculum except, as Dewey would have predicted, the memory of special projects. Even so, the assignment gave us an opportunity to explore our own concepts of high school and, more important, to look at some aspects of how those understandings had been formed. The assignment also situated us in our own perceptions of the sociological and psychological characteristics of adolescence, by putting us back in touch with our own adolescent experiences. Drawing from that experience in my post-graduate course work, I began including autobiographical writing in my courses when I first became a teacher educator in 1988. When I joined the English Education faculty at Indiana University of Pennsylvania in 1990, I found colleagues who were committed to having students explore their own literacy learning -- to wnte their reading and writing autobiographies. For the past several years, then, autobiographical narrative has been a part of every course I teach in our teacher education programs. Masters students in my English teaching methods seminar write a paper titled Remembering High School. In a course on research in teaching literature and literacy, students do a three part Profile of the Self as Reader project in which they 1) examine closely their own literacy learning, 2) carefully analyze their response as a reader to a full length text, and 3) apply evidence from their personal history as readers to their understandings of their current reading selves. …

Developing a Distributed Learning Community

This article describes the implementation of a teaching teleapprenticeship model that involves undergraduate education majors and public school students in a series of instructional interactions that provide opportunities for reciprocal mentoring roles. This model led to the emergence of a distributed learning community composed of a college biology instructor, his undergraduate students, and teachers and students in the public schools, Grades 4–8. Undergraduate students enrolled in the introductory biology course who indicated an interest in a teaching career were invited to participate in a Teaching Teleapprenticeship Project in which they would serve as content resources to public school students as part of the instructor’s vision of an electronic classroom. In this article, surveys, interviews, and observations of the participants are summarized to describe how the electronic classroom evolved over a three year period from 1992–1994. Misconceptions can come into play in any instructional situation, and we found that misconceptions in the electronic classroom present special challenges. Suggestions are given for planning and implementing projects linking university undergraduates with students in K–12 schools, as well as suggestions for minimizing the communication of erroneous information.The instructor of an introductory biology course for nonmajors at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign regularly offers a variety of extra credit options for students. In recent years, he has become aware of the prevalence of computers in public school classrooms, as well as the electronic networking possibilities available for teachers. His vision was to create an electronic classroom, a place for the education majors in his biology course to begin to learn about how computers are being used in schools and how computer networks are making content resources more accessible to classrooms. He also wanted his students to think about the kinds of science questions that children of various ages might ask and to attempt to provide appropriate responses using this new medium. This article describes the evolution of the instructor’s vision of an electronic classroom and the nature of his students’ experiences. This research was conducted as part of an NSF-supported project investigating teaching teleapprenticeships and the uses of computers and computer networks in the preparation of pre-service math and science teachers. This project also involved students and teachers in Grades 4–8 in schools all over North America during Years 1 and 2, and within a 70-mile radius of the university in Year 3.