PROCEEDINGS OF THE 15TH ANNUAL CONFERENCE ON RESEARCH IN UNDERGRADUATE MATHEMATICS EDUCATION (Vol 2)
2012
Portland, Oregon
Preparing Mathematics Teachers to Teach Definitions
Page: 2-39
Mathematics teachers, at all levels, must help their students become thoughtful users of mathematical definitions. This paper examines pre-service secondary mathematics teachers, at the end of their undergraduate training, interacting with mathematical definitions. They were tasked with choosing and using definitions; evaluating the equivalence of definitions; and interpreting a definition from a high school mathematics textbook. Their performances indicated that many of these future mathematics teachers have difficulty reasoning with and about mathematical definitions. These deficiencies have implications for undergraduate teacher preparation.