Targeting Reform of the Undergraduate Mathematics Preparation of Elementary/Middle School Teachers

Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo MI

Investigators

Abstract

Mathematical Sciences (21) Current efforts to reform K-12 mathematics content and its teaching, urged by professional standards and supported by social constructivist theories of knowing, are bringing about new emphases on active learning, new expectations for student-teacher and student-student communication patterns, greater reliance on sense-making and reasoning and new roles and responsibilities for both the teacher and the student in the learning process. This teacher preparation project is designed to address the important challenges that such reform brings to the teaching of mathematics by redefining the manner in which the preservice elementary and middle school teacher audience come to understand mathematical content. The project is a collaborative effort by faculty at multiple institutions to produce a set of innovative, standards-based instructional materials and instructor resources integrating appropriate computing technologies, alternative assessments, and challenging learning opportunities, often situated in the context of core tasks of teaching, for the preservice elementary and middle school teacher audience. By using the project materials, teachers acquire a comprehensive mathematics background necessary to support the quality and style of teaching envisioned by current K-8 mathematics reform curricula. Teachers emerge with the attitudes that allow them to be receptive to change and to the increasing influence of technology on learning mathematics, teaching methodologies, and school mathematics content. They also value sense making and reasoning as necessary components of mathematical understanding and can instill those values in their own students.