Supporting mathematics teacher educators' practices for facilitating prospective teachers' mathematical explanations in content courses

Abstract

The push for more student-generated explanations in K-8 mathematics classrooms, together with prospective teachers' well-documented weaknesses in both providing adequate explanation and appreciating what constitutes a sound mathematical explanation, points to the need for more experiences for prospective elementary teachers (PTs) to formulate explanations of mathematical ideas before asking them to facilitate students' explanations. Creating experiences for PTs to wrestle with challenging mathematics and learn to elicit, develop, and evaluate mathematical explanations is a responsibility of mathematics teacher educators (MTEs) who teach content courses for teachers. Our work considers MTEs' practices that encourage PTs to construct and critique explanations. Through examination of data from a professional development designed for MTEs, we identified aspects of PTs' mathematical explanations that MTEs attended to while observing and discussing a math content course for PTs. From this study we identified five MTE practices that provide opportunities to engage PTs in constructing mathematical explanations. Specific strategies for MTEs to implement these practices are shared and related dilemmas are discussed.