Since the prevalence of data and statistics in the media and workplace has greatly increased over the past few decades, the teaching of statistics in K-12 grades has also increased. This necessitates that teachers be ready to teach statistical concepts throughout the grade levels. The recently adopted Common Core State Standards for Mathematics…

This study was situated in a semester-long classroom teaching experiment examining prospective teachers' understanding of number concepts and operations. The purpose of this paper is to describe the learning goals, tasks, and tools used to cultivate prospective teachers' understanding of addition and subtraction with whole numbers.…

Three hundred-one pre-service teachers enrolled in elementary teacher education program were administered two surveys to measure mathematics anxiety and mathematical beliefs. Results of the study revealed that there were significant differences between third year and fourth year pre-service teachers regarding their mathematics anxiety and…

This article discusses pre-service elementary teachers' feedback regarding an implementation of a personal response system (clickers) in their mathematics course. A modified peer instruction model used clickers as a preliminary to class exploration of mathematical content. Classes of approximately 30 students included six lessons that were…

Sixty-two elementary pre-service teachers enrolled in a mathematics methods course were asked to "draw math" at the beginning and end of the semester. These drawings were used to examine the initial perceptions and how these changed by the end of the semester of methods and field experiences. Findings describe the various drawings and possible…

This article describes a pilot study in which pre-service elementary teachers (PSTs) used rectangular area models on base-10 grid paper to begin making sense of multiplication of decimal fractions. Although connections were made to multi-digit whole number multiplication and to the distributive property, the PSTs were challenged by interpreting…

The role of a teacher is different from that in traditional mathematics instruction when the implementation of a lesson is based on students' ideas. The author's experience teaching the same lesson (of the latter format) to two different classes of pre-service teachers in an elementary mathematics methods course is described. Since whole-class…

With a national need to improve Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Education (STEM), elementary pre-service teachers must be provided with ample opportunities to increase their own knowledge and confidence in STEM disciplines. This article describes a Math Block experience developed for a special population of non-traditional…

Elementary pre-service teachers report high levels of mathematics anxiety (MA), but the construct less widely addressed is their mathematics teaching anxiety (MTA). This study investigated the frequency with which MA stemming from prior experiences leads to MTA. Fifty-three elementary pre-service teachers' written reflections were analyzed, using…

Through a study conducted in a core Foundations of Mathematics course at Western Oregon University, the authors investigate the thesis that peer-grading helps future elementary and middle school teachers improve their own attitudes about writing and assessing mathematics. Study participants were asked to provide scale responses to a series of…

In this paper the authors present three design principles they use to develop preservice teachers' mathematical content knowledge for teaching in their mathematics content and/or methods courses: (1) building on currently held conceptions, (2) modeling teaching for understanding, (3) focusing on connections between content knowledge and other…

Problem solving tasks offer valuable opportunities to strengthen prospective elementary teachers' knowledge of and disposition toward mathematics, providing them with new experiences doing mathematics. Mathematics educators can influence future instruction by modeling effective pedagogical strategies that engage students in making sense of…

This study compared content knowledge for teaching mathematics differences between elementary pre-service teachers in a traditional versus an experimental mathematics methods course. The experimental course replaced 20 minutes of traditional methods, each class, with an intervention of elementary mathematics content. The difference between groups…

The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics calls for students to see relationships and connections with mathematics (2000). This study examined the influences on eight pre-service elementary school teachers' beliefs and knowledge of teaching mathematics through literature. The semester long project involved both the language arts and…

In a geometry content course for pre-service elementary teachers, technology was utilized to assist students in making sense of shapes. They learned to write simple procedures in Logo that would program a turtle to draw various quadrilaterals. In the context of writing these procedures, the pre-service teachers used variables to represent the…