Recognizing meaning in students' mathematical ideas is challenging, especially when such ideas are different from standard mathematics. This study examined, through a teaching-scenario task, the reasoning and responses of prospective elementary and secondary teachers to a student's non-traditional strategy for dividing fractions. Six categories of…

We consider what a concern for social justice in terms of social inclusion might mean for teacher education, both practising and prospective, with particular reference to the use of information and communication technology (ICT) in mathematics education taking place at a borderland school. Our discussion proceeds through the following steps: (1)…

The current push to marry off mathematics with social justice compels one to ask such critical questions as "What is social justice?" and "How does (or can) mathematics look and act when viewed in/through the lenses of social justice?" Taking a critically reflective approach, this article draws the reader into a discussion of what is amiss in the…

Teaching for social justice in the mathematics classroom requires discernment between what "should" be done to ensure accountability to the practices of the discipline and what "could" be done to promote awareness of how those practices may be used to afford equity and access within the classroom. One approach to teaching and learning that may be…

In this article, we propose that guiding teachers to examine the regulative/discursive norms of school mathematics with tools derived from social semiotics can serve two related goals: (1) to deconstruct the "math is math period!" disposition in prospective teachers by promoting their critical understanding of the symbolic domination work they…

This collective case study reports on an investigation into the relationship between mathematics teachers' beliefs and their classroom practices, namely, how they organized their classroom activities, interacted with their students, and assessed their students' learning. Additionally, the study examined the pervasiveness of their beliefs in the…

This documentary account situates teacher educator, prospective teacher, and elementary students' mathematical thinking in relation to one another, demonstrating shared challenges to learning mathematics. It highlights an important mathematics reasoning skill--creating and analyzing representations. The author examines responses of prospective…

This article presents practical perspectives on mathematics teacher change through results of collaborative research with two mathematics secondary school teachers in order to improve the teaching and learning of mathematics in Rwanda. The 2006 national mathematics curriculum reform stresses pedagogies that enhance problem-solving, critical…

This study examines the influence of reading and planning from two differently organized mathematics textbooks on prospective high school mathematics teachers' pedagogical content knowledge and content knowledge of exponential functions. The teachers completed a pretest and two posttests. On the pretest, the teachers possessed an incomplete…

The study presented in this article investigates forms of "mathematical" interaction in different social settings. One major interest is to better understand mathematics teachers' joint professional discourse while observing and analysing young students mathematical interaction followed by teacher's intervention. The teachers' joint professional…

This study was undertaken in order to better understand prospective elementary school teachers' motivations for working with fractions before and after taking a course designed to deepen their understanding of mathematics, as well as what instructional practices might be related to any changes detected in their motivations. Eighty-five education…

In this study, we examined prospective middle school mathematics teachers' reflective thinking skills to understand how they learned from their own teaching practice when engaging in a modified lesson study experience. Our goal was to identify variations among prospective teachers' descriptions of students' thinking and frequency of their…

Teaching is a field that is dynamic, with innovations necessitating upgrading of skills and education of teachers for the successful implementation of reforms. The behaviour and attitudes of teachers towards teaching and learning and their knowledge banks are the result of the impact of in-service training. This study investigated the perceptions…

In this article, I draw on post-structural and feminist epistemologies to analyse interview data from two prospective teachers on a primary education degree. Specifically I use Foucauldian critical discourse analysis to discuss the competing discourses of the masculine mathematician and the feminine primary school teacher. The initial purpose of…

Professional development comes in many forms, some of which are deemed more useful than others. However, when groups of teachers are excluded, or exclude themselves, from professional development opportunities, then there is an issue of social justice. This article examines the experiences of a group of teachers from a Maori-medium school who…