Preface

Bharath Sriraman noted in his Editorial for Vol. 10, nos. 1–2 that the first issue of The Mathematics Enthusiast (known then as The Montana Mathematics Enthusiast) published in April 2004 was “the result of four idealistic elementary school teachers believing in the mission of this journal and writing about their attempts to reconcile the mathematics content they were learning in a mathematics for elementary school teachers course with existing mathematics education research found in practitioners’ journals as well as standards imposed by institutions’ framing policy” (p. 2). Ten years later we return to a similar focus

Mathematical Content Knowledge for Teaching Elementary Mathematics: A Focus on Geometry and Measurement

This paper summarizes the extant peer-­‐reviewed research on PTs’ understanding of geometry and measurement, focusing on a wide variety of topics within these content domains. When looking across the 26 studies reviewed, findings span a variety of content topics, providing little depth in either the geometry or measurement content domain. However, collective findings do indicate PTs’ overall conceptions in geometry and measurement to be limited and weak, with PTs relying on memorized procedural processes. Some evidence indicates that cognitive development, along with spatial visualization skills, plays a greater role in learning geometry than memory skills. In addition, the van Hiele levels of geometric learning provide a helpful framework to think about the development of geometric ideas. Direction of future research is elaborated to address ways to develop PTs’ understanding of geometry and measurement. Gaps that still exist in the research literature regarding PTs’ mathematical content knowledge in geometry and measurement are identified

Developing Mathematical Content Knowledge for Teaching Elementary School Mathematics

In this paper the authors present three design principles they use to develop preservice teachers\u27 mathematical content knowledge for teaching in their mathematics content and/or methods courses: (1) building on currently held conceptions, (2) modeling teaching for understanding, (3) focusing on connections between content knowledge and other types of knowledge. The authors share results of individual research projects and teaching approaches focusing on helping preservice elementary teachers develop such knowledge. Specific examples from different content areas (whole number, fractions, angle, and area) are discussed

Prospective Elementary Teacher Mathematics Content Knowledge: An Introduction

This Special Issue on the mathematical content knowledge of prospective elementary teachers (PTs) provides summaries of the extant peer-­‐reviewed research literature from 1978 to 2012 on PTs’ content knowledge across several mathematical topics, specifically whole number and operations, fractions, decimals, geometry and measurement, and algebra. Each topic-­‐specific summary of the literature is presented in a self-­‐contained paper, written by a subgroup of a larger Working Group that has collaborated across several years, resulting in this Special Issue sharing the final work. The authors hope this summative look at prospective teacher content knowledge will be of interest to the mathematics education community and will be a useful resource when considering future research as well as designing mathematics content courses for prospective elementary teachers

Prospective Elementary Mathematics Teacher Content Knowledge: What Do We Know, What Do We Not Know, and Where Do We Go?

In this Special Issue, the authors reviewed 112 research studies from 1978 to 2012 on prospective elementary teachers’ content knowledge in five content areas: whole numbers and operations, fractions, decimals, geometry and measurement, and algebra. Looking across these studies, this final paper identifies the trends and common themes in terms of the counts and types of studies and commonalities among findings. Analyses of the counts show that the number of articles published each year focusing on prospective teacher (PT) content knowledge is increasing. Most articles across the content areas show that PTs tend to rely on procedures rather than concepts. However, the focus of most articles is identifying PTs’ misconceptions rather than understanding PTs’ conceptions and the development thereof. Both the limitations of the reviews and the directions for future research studies are elaborated

The Development of a Novel Interprofessional Education Curriculum for third year medical and pharmacy students

Abstract Introduction: The Liaison Committee on Medical Education and the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education, agencies responsible for the accreditation of medical and pharmacy schools respectively, require interprofessional education (IPE) to be integrated into both curricula. Institutions are given the autonomy to design and implement this requirement, however research is equivocal in regards to when and how best to implement IPE. The development of a new IPE curriculum is often met with a number of challenges, such as a lack of faculty support and resources. Methods: This study describes a newly created pilot IPE curriculum developed with minimal existing organizational IPE structure and resources, led by faculty champions from two complementary healthcare professions, Internal Medicine and Pharmacy. The validated 10-item Student Perceptions of Interprofessional Clinical Education- Revised (SPICE-R) instrument was used to assess the medical and pharmacy students’ attitudes towards interprofessional healthcare teams and the team approach to patient care. Results: Overall, students demonstrated a statistically significant increase in their perception of interprofessional healthcare teams and team approach to patient care. Conclusion: Prior to this IPE curriculum no formal IPE curriculum existed in this setting. This IPE curriculum was successfully implemented with minimal existing resources, the use of faculty champions and student’s perception of IPE improved using the validated SPICE-R instrument. IPE curriculum integration at our institution is in various stages of development. As IPE integration moves forward this pilot can serve as one example of how IPE could be implemented

Prospective Elementary Mathematics Teacher Content Knowledge: What Do We Know, What Do We Not Know, and Where Do We Go?

The authors reviewed 112 research studies from 1978 to 2012 on prospective elementary teachers\u27 content knowledge in five content areas: whole numbers and operations, fractions, decimals, geometry and measurement, and algebra. Looking across these studies, this final paper identifies the trends and common themes in terms of the counts and types of studies and commonalities among findings. Analyses of the counts show that the number of articles published each year focusing on prospective teacher (PT) content knowledge is increasing. Most articles across the content areas show that PTs tend to rely on procedures rather than concepts. However, the focus of most articles is identifying PTs\u27 misconceptions rather than understanding PTs\u27 conceptions and the development thereof. Both the limitations of the reviews and the directions for future research studies are elaborated