Mathematics Teacher Noticing & Opportunities To Notice Student Thinking

Project Type

Faculty Scholarship

Scholarship Domain(s)

Scholarship of Discovery

Presentation Type

Presentation

Abstract

Every teacher has at some point taught their first lesson, but what did they notice in that experience? Research has shown that it is important to notice and use student mathematical thinking in the classroom, but pre-service teachers (PSTs) have difficulty in doing so (Levin, Hammer, & Coffey, 2009; Simpson & Haltiwanger, 2017). While much research has focused on teachers’ noticing of student mathematical thinking, I have identified the additional need of promoting opportunities to notice. The connections between opportunities to notice and teacher noticing needs to be researched.

The goal of this qualitative case study of four secondary mathematics PSTs is to better understand (a) opportunities to notice student mathematical thinking from classroom interactions, (b) how PSTs notice student mathematical thinking during their teaching experiences prior to student teaching, and (c) relations between the two. The PSTs participating in the study were enrolled in a methods course designed to help PSTs notice student mathematical thinking through activities intended to promote purposeful noticing of student mathematical thinking while they were teaching. Twelve of their lessons were video-recorded (three from each PST), and 12 post-lesson interviews were conducted. In this presentation, I will further describe the study and share information about the data analysis process. In addition, I will share my initial findings.

Permission Type

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

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Apr 11th, 1:50 PM Apr 11th, 2:20 PM

Mathematics Teacher Noticing & Opportunities To Notice Student Thinking

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Every teacher has at some point taught their first lesson, but what did they notice in that experience? Research has shown that it is important to notice and use student mathematical thinking in the classroom, but pre-service teachers (PSTs) have difficulty in doing so (Levin, Hammer, & Coffey, 2009; Simpson & Haltiwanger, 2017). While much research has focused on teachers’ noticing of student mathematical thinking, I have identified the additional need of promoting opportunities to notice. The connections between opportunities to notice and teacher noticing needs to be researched.

The goal of this qualitative case study of four secondary mathematics PSTs is to better understand (a) opportunities to notice student mathematical thinking from classroom interactions, (b) how PSTs notice student mathematical thinking during their teaching experiences prior to student teaching, and (c) relations between the two. The PSTs participating in the study were enrolled in a methods course designed to help PSTs notice student mathematical thinking through activities intended to promote purposeful noticing of student mathematical thinking while they were teaching. Twelve of their lessons were video-recorded (three from each PST), and 12 post-lesson interviews were conducted. In this presentation, I will further describe the study and share information about the data analysis process. In addition, I will share my initial findings.