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Learning to teach prospective teachers to teach mathematics

University of British Columbia

This study investigates the problems, tensions, and dilemmas I experienced as a beginning teacher educator learning to teach prospective elementary teachers. Working within the context of calls for reform in mathematics education, the study reports my efforts of designing and investigating a pedagogy of mathematics teacher education, in collaboration with two colleagues, which attempts to place inquiry at the focus of teaching and learning to teach mathematics for understanding. A major feature of the mathematics methods course, the context of this study, was the opportunity for prospective teachers to work with students and to investigate their own teaching. Video taped records of class events, audio taped records of the instructors' planning meetings, my teaching journal and field notes, and prospective teachers' journals and course assignments were sources of data. Analysis of the complexities and challenges I experienced as a beginning teacher educator occurred in two main phaseswhile I was teaching the course and reflecting on my deliberations and struggles in the "action-present" (Schon, 1987) and one year later as I study my teaching through an analysis of what I found problematic. Such an analysis provides insights into the sense I was making of classroom events, how I sought to resolve what I found problematic, and what I am learning as a teacher educator of mathematics education. Narratives are used as a way of reconstructing, interpreting, and communicating my pedagogical experiences around three themes of questioning, listening, and responding, of resistance, and of collaboration and investigation. Aspects of my teaching that were found to be problematic include: choosing and using pedagogical problems; interweaving investigations of mathematics and pedagogy; and developing a community of inquiry. What I found problematic provided opportunities for learning. An aspect discussed, for example, is learning about and from prospective teachers. Issues related to problems and possibilities for teacher educators are raised. Implicatins are drawn which focus on the preparation of teacher educators and how teacher educators might be supported in their learning to teach.

Thesis/Dissertation

application/pdf

2009-04-02

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http://hdl.handle.net/2429/6742

Curriculum Studies

University of British Columbia

UBCV

DSpace