Discussion is a practice used in mathematics methods courses to support prospective teachers' pedagogical ideas. Underexamined but central to the development of instructional activities, including discussions of teaching, are mathematics teacher educators' (MTEs') tacit and explicit theories of learning and teaching. We report findings from a…

One promising approach for connecting undergraduate content coursework to secondary teaching is using teacher-created representations of practice. Using these representations effectively requires seeing teachers' use of mathematical knowledge in and for teaching (MKT). We argue that Rowland's (2013) Knowledge Quartet for MKT, in particular, the…

Approximations of practice create valuable opportunities for preservice teachers (PSTs) by engaging them in components of teaching. By reviewing the literature, this study explored PSTs' learning through approximations and the extent approximated practices preserve the complexity -- or authenticity -- of teaching. A review of 25 empirical studies…

Mediated Field Experiences (MFEs) provide teacher candidates (TCs) structured opportunities to unpack and enact core teaching practices, gain mathematics content and pedagogical knowledge, and reflect critically on mathematics teaching and learning. In this paper we present findings from a multi-institutional descriptive pilot study that…

We discuss affordances and liabilities of using a storyboard to depict a written case of a teacher's dilemma that involves race, opportunity to learn, and student community. We rely on reflections by the teacher educator who authored the written case and later depicted it as a storyboard to use it with his preservice teachers (PSTs). The analysis…

We report on efforts to better understand the questioning practices used by preservice elementary teachers (PSTs), including the range of preferred question types and the values they invoke when evaluating their questions. We sought to determine whether teachers exhibited consistent patterns in selecting questions with certain features, such as…

This paper represents research that exists at the crossroad of scholarly practice and scholarly inquiry. We share the design, enactment and empirical examination of an elementary methods course activity, Exploring and Supporting Student Thinking (ESST) which engaged 18 prospective teachers in two sessions of one on one problem posing with 3rd…

This project examines how prospective elementary teachers (PSTs) framed the idea of drawing on multiple mathematical knowledge bases (MMKB)--children's mathematical thinking and funds of knowledge--for diverse learners, in the context of adapting curriculum. We analyzed 47 written reflections of PSTs' analyses of an existing mathematics…

We present an analysis of the practices of one mathematics teacher educator in the context of an elementary methods course. Our analysis of the 51 tasks used in the course revealed a content structure characterized by four components: mathematical knowledge, psychology of mathematics learning, teachers' didactic actions, and reflection. The…