An analysis of U.S. pre-service teachers’ modeling and explaining 0.14㎡

This investigation engaged elementary and middle school pre-service teachers in a task of modeling and explaining the magnitude of 0.14 and examined their responses. The study analyzed both successful and unsuccessful responses in order to reflect on the patterns of misconceptions relative to pre-service teachers’ prior knowledge. The findings suggest a need to promote opportunities for pre-service teachers to make connections between different domains through meaningful tasks, to reason abstractly and quantitatively, to use proper language, and to refine conceptual understanding. While mathematics teacher educators (MTEs) could use such mathematical tasks to identify the mathematical content needs of pre-service teachers, MTEs generally use instructional time to connect content and pedagogy. More importantly, an early and consistent exposure to a combined experience of mathematics and pedagogy that connects and deepens key concepts in the program’s curriculum is critical in defining the important content knowledge for K-8 mathematics teachers.