STUDENT TEACHERS AND TEACHER EDUCATORS ’ PEDAGOGY UNDER CONSTRUCTION

The research results presented in this paper are only a small part of an action research performed with the main aim of improving student teachers ’ understanding of mathematics. The re-teaching of mathematics was integrated with the teaching of pedagogy by asking student teachers (STs) to perform children’s activities which have the potential to develop conceptual understanding of the subject. The data collected indicated that most STs improved their understanding, but some STs needed more time to re-learn certain content in the primary school curriculum. This paper presents some results concerning: (a) STs’ previous knowledge of addition of fractions, (b) STs ’ difficulties in relearning addition of fractions and (c) some practical solutions proposed to ameliorate STs ’ learning difficulties within the time available. RELATED LITERATURE Shulman (1986) identified several knowledge components which teachers may use in order to make decisions for the purpose of teaching and to help them promote understanding on the part of their students. One of these components is subject matter knowledge (SMK) which includes both the substantive and syntactic structures of the discipline. The focus of this paper will be on teachers and STs ’ acquisition of substantive understanding of the mathematics they will teach. According to Shulman, “The substantive structures are the variety of ways in which the basic concepts and principles of the discipline are organized to incorporate its facts ” (p. 9). The acquisition of pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) which includes “the ways of representin