What it means to be an elementary mathematics teacher : changing practices and understandings over the course of preservice professional development

This study incorporated a cross-sectional design to approximate a longitudinal study to examine the ways in which professional development influences the understanding of preservice elementary mathematics teachers from the beginning to the end of preservice preparation. While some quantitative methods were used, this study focused primarily on qualitative methodology to examine the beliefs, knowledge, and practices of preservice mathematics teachers. The methods used included questioning, interviewing, video recording, and observation. Both large and small groups of individuals from three courses representing points during the course of preservice professional development participated in this study; small groups were composed of three focus participants chosen from the large participant groups. Large scale instruments included a questionnaire, quickwrite, and reflection on teaching. Small scale instruments included interviews, video recording teaching and learning events, and video-elicited interviews about the teaching and learning event. Analysis of data from questionnaires, quickwrites, reflections, interviews, and video tapes focused on similarities and differences among the beliefs about, knowledge of, and practices toward mathematics teaching and learning in individuals of varying quantity and type of pedagogical content knowledge and teaching experience. Four findings emerged from data analysis: 1) with more professional development, preservice teachers' beliefs become increasingly aligned with a reform perspective; 2) with more professional development, preservice teachers' views of mathematics teaching and learning become more complex; 3) there is a change in the support preservice teachers provide students from using a few teacher strategies that lead students toward a correct answer to a wider range of strategies that elicits students' processes; and 4) teaching practices are differentiated by the degrees to which preservice teachers focus on process and product while engaged in teaching and learnin