PROCEEDINGS OF THE 20TH ANNUAL CONFERENCE ON RESEARCH IN UNDERGRADUATE MATHEMATICS EDUCATION
2017
San Diego, California
Opportunities to learn from teaching: A case study of two graduate teaching assistants
Page: 181
Pass rates in US first-year undergraduate mathematics courses are abysmally low. However, recent studies have found that there are doctoral programs that have improved pass rates by focusing on improving instruction. In particular, these exemplary programs focus on interpreting student thinking and that this instructional shift creates a more positive experience for undergraduate students. To scale up this result, it is important to understand how instructors connect student thinking to teaching actions. The purpose of this case study is to examine how two graduate student teaching assistants developed the ability to connect student work to hypotheses about student thinking and then link these hypotheses to teaching actions. For this analysis, the researchers introduce a framework that has potential to help providers of professional development identify how to strengthen graduate students’ opportunities to learn from teaching, as well identify variations in graduate students’ use of undergraduate student thinking to inform teaching actions.