Pre-service mathematics teachers’ noticing competency: Focusing on teaching for robust understanding of mathematics

Hee-jeong Kim1,*   

1Assistant Professor, Korea University

Abstract

This study explores pre-service secondary mathematics teachers (PSTs)’ noticing competency. 17 PSTs participated in this study as a part of the mathematics teaching method class. Individual PST’s essays regarding the question ‘what effective mathematics teaching would be?’ that they discussed and wrote at the beginning of the course were collected as the first data. PSTs’ written analysis of an expert teacher’s teaching video, colleague PSTs’ demo-teaching video, and own demo-teaching video were also collected and analyzed. Findings showed that most PSTs’ noticing level improved as the class progressed and showed a pattern of focusing on each key aspect in terms of the Teaching for Robust Understanding of Mathematics (TRU Math) framework, but their reasoning strategies were somewhat varied. This suggests that the TRU Math framework can support PSTs to improve the competency of 'what to attend' among the noticing components. In addition, the instructional reasoning strategies imply that PSTs’ noticing reasoning strategy was mostly related to their interpretation of noticing components, which should be also emphasized in the teacher education program.

Figures & Tables

Figure 1. Noticing components in the study.