PROCEEDINGS OF THE 16TH ANNUAL CONFERENCE ON RESEARCH IN UNDERGRADUATE MATHEMATICS EDUCATION (Vol 2)
2013
Denver, Colorado
How Pre-Service Teachers in Content Courses Revise Their Mathematical Communication
Page: 2-670
Math content courses aim to develop mathematical reasoning and communication skills in future teachers. Instructors often assign problems requiring in-depth written explanations to develop these skills. However, when a student’s conception is incorrect, does written feedback from the instructor create the cognitive dissonance necessary to effect realignment of the student’s understanding? These conceptions may be mathematical (“what is a fraction?”) or meta-mathematical (“what constitutes a justification?”). Assigning problem revisions theoretically creates space for cognitive dissonance by having students rethink their solutions. I investigate a revision assignment in a course for future teachers to understand the nature of students’ revisions and the possible impetuses for these revisions. In particular, I find preliminary evidence that students’ revisions demonstrate changes in their language, mathematics, and use of examples and representations. Further, students’ adoption of new representations in their solutions are largely due to observing peers’ presentations rather than to instructor feedback.