This research project aimed to extend the research literature by providing greater insight into the way individual prospective teachers develop their conceptual understanding of whole number concepts and operations in a social context. In this qualitative study, a case study analysis provided the opportunity for careful exploration of the manner in which prospective teachers' understanding changed and the ways two selected participants reorganized their mathematical thinking within a classroom teaching experiment. While previous research efforts insisted on creating a dichotomy of choosing the individual or the collective understanding, through the utilization of the emergent perspective both the individual and the social aspects were considered. Specifically, using the emergent perspective as a theoretical framework, this research endeavor has outlined the mathematical conceptions and activities of individual prospective teachers and thus has provided the psychological perspective correlate to the social perspective's classroom mathematical practices. As the research participants progressed through an instructional sequence taught entirely in base-8, a case study approach was used to select and analyze two individuals. In order to gain a more thorough understanding of the individual perspective, this research endeavor focused on whether teachers with varying initial content knowledge developed differently through this instructional sequence. The first participant initially demonstrated "Low-Content" knowledge according to the CKT-M instrument database questions which measure content knowledge for teaching mathematics. She developed a greater understanding of place value concepts and was able to apply this new knowledge to gain a deeper sense of the rationale behind counting strategies and addition and subtraction operations. She did not demonstrate the ability to consistently make sense of multiplication and division strategies. She participated in the classroom argumentation primarily by providing claims and data as she illustrated the way she would use different procedures to solve addition and subtraction problems. The second participant illustrated "High-Content" knowledge based on the CKT-M instrument. She already possessed a solid foundation in understanding place value concepts and throughout the instructional sequence developed various ways to connect and build on her initial understanding through the synthesis of multiple pedagogical content tools. She demonstrated conceptual understanding of counting strategies, and all four whole number operations. Furthermore, by exploring various ways that other prospective teachers solved the problems, she also presented a greater pedagogical perspective in how other prospective teachers think mathematically. This prospective teacher showed a shift in her participation in classroom argumentation as she began by providing claims and data at the outset of the instructional sequence. Later on, she predominantly provided the warrants and backings to integrate the mathematical concepts and pedagogical tools used to develop greater understanding of whole number operations. These results indicate the findings based on the individual case-study analysis of prospective elementary school teachers and the cross-case analysis that ensued. The researcher contends that through the synthesis of the findings of this project along with current relevant research efforts, teacher educators and educational policy makers can revisit and possibly revise instructional practices and sequences in order to develop teachers with greater conceptual understanding of concepts vital to elementary mathematics.

With the implementation of No Child Left Behind legislation and a push for reform curricula, prospective teachers must be prepared to facilitate learning at a conceptual level. To address these concerns, an exploratory mixed methods investigation of twenty-eight prospective middle grades teachers’ mathematics knowledge for teaching geometry and mathematical connection-making was conducted at a large public southeastern university. Participants completed a diagnostic assessment in mathematics with a focus on geometry and measurement (CRMSTD, 2007), a mathematical connections evaluation, and a card sort activity. Mixed methods data analysis revealed prospective middle grades teachers’ mathematics knowledge for teaching geometry was underdeveloped and the mathematical connections made by prospective middle grades teachers were more procedural than conceptual in nature.

This research examined the critical thinking (CT) skills and conceptions of prospective teachers studying at Foreign Language Education Department at Middle East Technical University. In this way, the study intended to contribute to the field of curriculum and instruction by pointing to the currents status while constituting a basis for further actions in teacher education in terms CT. In this research, data analysis was carried out through both quantitative and qualitative analysis. A survey, including Student Information Form, and Watson and Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal- Form YM Turkish version were utilized for data gathering. Data were collected from 103 prospective teachers in the junior and senior level during the Spring Semester of 2007- 2008 Academic Year. Results demonstrated that the critical thinking (CT) levels of prospective teachers assessed by WGCTA are in medium level. In addition, WGCTA-YM cannot be predicted from reported regular reading activity, CGPA, and gender. Besides, results showed that, prospective teachers make rudiment or vague statements about critical thinking activities and do not point to a common instructional activity. In terms of critical thinking definitions, prospective teachers mostly perceive CT as a cognitive skill. Furthermore, there is a common sense view of CT rather than an understanding based on literature. The results revealed that prospective teachers are short of the essential CT skills and the CT comprehension to be able to raise individuals with CT ability. Therefore, curriculum renovation movements, projects, and research studies to improve critical thinking skills in teacher education should be developed and implemented.

The aim of this study was to investigate the changes on what the prospective elementary mathematics teachers noticed as they watched video cases and discussed online. More specially, I wanted to answer the question &ldquo / To what extent the elementary prospective mathematics teachers&rsquo / noticing with respect to reform-minded teaching changes during their video case-based teacher education, in terms of teacher and student roles?&rdquo / With this question in mind, I asked senior prospective mathematics teachers at METU to watch six video cases depicting real elementary mathematics classrooms, and then discuss these cases in an online forum. The research was conducted during the 2008-2009 fall semester. Participants were asked to write reflection papers after watching a video each week. The online discussions took place in Metu Online-Net ClassR online forum, and each discussion was about a long week. The research study was qualitative in nature. Specifically, it was a case study research. Prospective teachers&rsquo / reflection papers on the videos, the online discussions, and interviews with the selected 15 focus participants at the beginning, in the middle and at the end of the study were the data sources. The data were analyzed through the qualitative data analysis techniques. The findings suggested that prospective teachers&rsquo / noticing skills with respect to the teacher and student roles in reform-minded teaching and learning were developed throughout the online video-case based discussions.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-28T20:57:07Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 RISOMAR ALVES DOS SANTOS.pdf: 685763 bytes, checksum: 3c73a20e032550e73c39cae68d6e4a25 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2007-02-12 / Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico / This study has the objective to apprehend how last year undergraduate students of a Pedagogy course, in the city of São Paulo, understand racism, prejudice and discrimination in teacher education and professional development. The theoretical framework was based on teacher education researchers, such as: André (1999), Candau (2002), Imbernón (2002), Garcia (1999) as well as on researchers who discuss racism and discrimination, such as: Guimarães (2002), Cavalleiro (2003), Munanga (1999) and Jones (1973). The methodological procedures included: a questionnaire in the beginning of the study, field notes and an intensive interview with a simulation teaching case. The content analysis made it possible to organize data in three topics: the participants´ view of racism; education for the diversity; underlying conceptions about the diversity: the place of black race. The results disclosed that the participants have a critical view of racism, prejudice and discrimination, understanding them as barrier to respectful relations between the many social groups. They suggest that education and education for the diversity may be the human solution to valuation of different cultures and groups. Further, they emphasize racist behavior still persisting in the 21st century is unacceptable . My conclusion at the end of this research is that we still have a long way to achieve an educational system that is built upon equality, in which becomes possible the construction of a multi-cultural and multi-racial society / Este estudo objetivou apreender como graduandos do último ano de um curso de Pedagogia da cidade de São Paulo compreendem o racismo, o preconceito e a discriminação na sua formação e atuação profissional. A fundamentação teórica apoiou-se em autores que discutem a formação de professores como: André (1999), Candau (2002), Imbernón (2002), Garcia (1999) e o tema racismo e discriminação como: Guimarães (2002), Cavalleiro (2003), Munanga (1999) e Jones (1973). Os procedimentos metodológicos incluíram: questionário, entrevista semi-estruturada e um caso de ensino. A análise de conteúdo possibilitou organizar os dados em três eixos temáticos: o racismo do ponto de vista dos pesquisados; a formação para a diversidade: concepções subjacentes e concepções acerca da diversidade: o lugar da raça negra. Os resultados revelaram que os participantes têm uma visão crítica a respeito do racismo, do preconceito e da discriminação, compreendendo-os como impedimento de relações respeitosas entre os vários grupos sociais. Apontam que a educação e a formação voltadas para a diversidade pode ser a saída para a valorização das diferentes culturas e grupos humanos. Destacam, também, como inaceitável que práticas racistas sejam cometidas em pleno século XXI. Concluo com essa pesquisa ainda ser longo o caminho a percorrer, para uma educação que considere a igualdade na diferença, tornando possível a construção de uma sociedade pluricultural e multiracial

The teaching of writing is a central task for teachers of Swedish and it is a complex activity which requires knowledge of different areas such as language, communication, and text. The aim of this licentiate’s dissertation is to investigate when and how the knowledge needed for the teaching of writing is developed in teacher education as well as during the first years of teaching. The study is based on semi-structured qualitative interviews with prospective and novice upper secondary school teachers of Swedish. The data obtained from the interviews were analyzed in two ways. The first analysis focused on the way in which the prospective and novice teachers talked about text, writing, and the teaching of writing. The result shows that, at the beginning of the teacher education, prospective teachers focus on concrete aspects of text – such as syntax, punctuation and spelling – when they speak about text, writing, writing instruction, and assessment of student writings. In other words, they pay special attention to local text levels. At the end of the teacher education  programme, prospective teachers focus on aspects of text structure such as outline, the structure of paragraphs, coherence and cohesion. Certain aspects that the students pay special attention to are mentioned by the novice teachers, but these aspects are not central to them. Instead, novice teachers give special attention to the global text levels such as context, receivers and the purpose of the text, i.e. abstract aspects of text and writing. The pattern discerned shows a development that starts with a focus on the details at a local text level and expands into a more comprehensive view with a focus at a global level. The second analysis concerns the development of the knowledge base for the teaching of writing. This analysis focuses on two of the knowledge categories described by Lee S. Shulman (1986, 1987), namely subject matter knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge (PCK), both of which can be seen as central for the teaching of writing. The knowledge base manifested in the prospective teachers’ utterances mainly consists of subject matter knowledge, whereas the greater part of the knowledge base manifested in the teachers’ utterances consists of pedagogical content knowledge for the teaching of writing. The teachers also manifest a more complex subject matter knowledge and speak about writing instruction in a way which is characterized by conscious choices, reflection and metacognition. The analysis thus shows that the PCK for the teaching of writing is mainly developed in the teaching profession; in other words, after the teacher education programme is finished.