Research in Mathematical Education (한국수학교육학회지시리즈D:수학교육연구)

Korean Society of Mathematical Education (한국수학교육학회)
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Understanding Whether and How Prospective Teachers Support Elementary Students to Compare Multiple Strategies in Their Enacted Number Talks

  • Received : 2023.05.15
  • Accepted : 2023.06.04
  • Published : 2023.06.30
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Abstract

Number talks as a brief instructional routine benefits students and teachers. In general, the routines consist of four steps- introducing, posing questions, collecting answers, sharing ideas. This paper focuses on the sharing ideas step in which multiple strategies are shared by students because teachers sometimes do not know what to do with these multiple ideas. One way is to support students to engage in comparison given that teachers are expected to support students to compare strategies in number talks. This paper explores whether and how 15 prospective teachers supported students in their practicum classroom to compare different strategies in their enacted number talk. In this paper, 15 videos of number talks enacted by the prospective teachers were collected. Analyzing the videos produced multiple episodes in relation to comparing strategies, including 1) where prospective teachers created pre-conditions for comparison, 2) where they invited students for comparison, 3) where they pressed students to compare, and 4) where they offered their own way to compare. There were two patterns that might limit the potential of having multiple strategies as conditions for comparison. Additionally, this paper found that even though the prospective teachers missed opportunities to support students to compare different strategies, there were two ways for teachers to support students to engage in comparison. These findings can be used for mathematics teacher educators to support prospective teachers.

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Acknowledgement

This material is based upon work supported by the Center for Teaching and Learning and the Faculty Research Grant Project at Utah Tech University under Grant No. RES-FAC-S2021-001.

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