Conception to concept or concept to conception? From being to becoming

Previous approaches to mathematics knowing and learning have attempted to account for the complexity of students’ individual conceptions of a mathematical concept. Those approaches primarily focused on students’ conceptual development when a mathematical concept comes into being. Recent research insights indicate that some students give meaning not only to states/objects that have a being but also to states/objects that are yet to become. In those cases, conceptual development is not meant to reflect an actual concept (conception-to-concept fit), but rather to create a concept (concept-to-conception fit). It is argued that the process of generating a concept-to-conception fit, in which ideas that express a yet to be realized state of the concept are created, might be better referred to meaning-making than sense-making

Shifting the ways prospective teachers frame and notice student mathematical thinking: from deficits to strengths

Noticing the strengths in students’ mathematical thinking is a critical skill that teachers need to develop, but it can be challenging due to the prevalence of deficit-based thinking in mathematics education. To address this challenge, a teacher education course was designed to encourage prospective teachers to engage in critical reflection on their own and others’ framings of students’ thinking and shift their focus towards noticing students’ strengths. The study analyzed written responses from the prospective teachers, collected at the beginning and end of the course, to investigate their framing and noticing of students’ mathematical thinking. The analysis focused on the aspects of students’ thinking that the prospective teachers paid attention to, the stances they took when interpreting students’ thinking, and the instructional moves they proposed in response to their thinking. Furthermore, the study established a spectrum of deficit-based and strength-based framings on students’ mathematical thinking. This spectrum allowed for the identification of each participant’s written noticing responses within a range of possibilities, contributing to a more nuanced understanding of the changes in teachers’ framing and noticing of students’ thinking over time

Shifting the ways prospective teachers frame and notice student mathematical thinking : From deficits to strengths

Noticing the strengths in students’ mathematical thinking is a critical skill that teachers need to develop, but it can be challenging due to the prevalence of deficit-based thinking in mathematics education. To address this challenge, a teacher education course was designed to encourage prospective teachers to engage in critical reflection on their own and others’ framings of students’ thinking and shift their focus towards noticing students’ strengths. The study analyzed written responses from the prospective teachers, collected at the beginning and end of the course, to investigate their framing and noticing of students’ mathematical thinking. The analysis focused on the aspects of students’ thinking that the prospective teachers paid attention to, the stances they took when interpreting students’ thinking, and the instructional moves they proposed in response to their thinking. Furthermore, the study established a spectrum of deficit-based and strength-based framings on students’ mathematical thinking. This spectrum allowed for the identification of each participant’s written noticing responses within a range of possibilities, contributing to a more nuanced understanding of the changes in teachers’ framing and noticing of students’ thinking over time

Theorising about mathematics teachers' professional knowledge: The content, form, nature, and source of teachers' knowledge

The guiding philosophy of this theoretical work lays in the argument that mathematics_teachers’ professional knowledge is the integration of various knowledge facets derived_from different sources including teaching experience and research. This paper goes beyond_past trends identifying what the teachers’ knowledge is about (content) by providing new_perspectives, in particular, on how the knowledge is structured and organised (form), on_what teachers’ draw on their knowledge (source), and whether the knowledge is stable and_coherent or contextually-sensitive and fluid (nature)

Mathematics cognition reconsidered: On ascribing meaning

In contrast to the common assumption that mathematics cognition involves the attempt to recognize a previously unnoticed meaning of a concept, here mathematics cognition is reconsidered as a process of ascribing meaning to the objects of one’s thinking. In this paper, the attention is focused on three processes that are convoluted in the complex dynamics involved when individuals ascribe meaning to higher mathematical objects: contextualizing, complementizing, and complexifying. The aim is to discuss emerging perspectives of these three processes in more detail that speak to the complex dynamics in mathematics cognition

Exploring deficit-based and strengths-based framings in noticing student mathematical thinking

This study explores prospective teachers’ framings in noticing students’ mathematical thinking. A course was designed to engage prospective teachers in critical reflection of their framings and to encourage strengths-based framings when noticing students’ mathematical thinking. Responses to noticing tasks during the first and last session of the course were analysed to identify what aspects prospective teachers pay attention to, what stances they adopt when interpreting, and what instructional moves they propose in responding to students’ mathematical thinking. On this basis, prospective teachers’ framings were characterised as deficit-based or strengths-based. The results show that prospective teachers shifted from deficit-based framings to strengths-based framings, and specific changes in prospective teachers’ noticing are discussed

On the relationship between school mathematics and university mathematics: a comparison of three approaches

This paper examines how different approaches in mathematics education conceptualise the relationship between school mathematics and university mathematics. The approaches considered here include: (a) Klein’s elementary mathematics from a higher standpoint; (b) Shulman’s transformation of disciplinary subject matter into subject matter for teaching; and (c) Chevallard’s didactic transposition of scholarly knowledge into knowledge to be taught. Similarities and contrasts between these three approaches are discussed in terms of how they frame the relationship between the academic discipline and the school subject, and to what extent they problematise the reliance and bias towards the academic discipline. The institutional position implicit in the three approaches is then examined in order to open up new ways of thinking about the relationship between school mathematics and university mathematics

On the relationship between school mathematics and university mathematics : A comparison of three approaches

This paper examines how different approaches in mathematics education conceptualise the relationship between school mathematics and university mathematics. The approaches considered here include: (a) Klein’s elementary mathematics from a higher standpoint; (b) Shulman’s transformation of disciplinary subject matter into subject matter for teaching; and (c) Chevallard’s didactic transposition of scholarly knowledge into knowledge to be taught. Similarities and contrasts between these three approaches are discussed in terms of how they frame the relationship between the academic discipline and the school subject, and to what extent they problematise the reliance and bias towards the academic discipline. The institutional position implicit in the three approaches is then examined in order to open up new ways of thinking about the relationship between school mathematics and university mathematics

On metaphors in thinking about preparing mathematics for teaching

Open Access funding enabled and organized by CAUL and its Member InstitutionsThis paper explores how different schools of thought in mathematics education think and speak about preparing mathematics for teaching by introducing and proposing certain metaphors. Among the metaphors under consideration here are the unpacking metaphor, which finds its origin in the Anglo-American school of thought of pedagogical reduction of mathematics; the elementarization metaphor, which has its origin in the German school of thought of didactic reconstruction of mathematics; and the recontextualization metaphor, which originates in the French school of thought of didactic transposition. The metaphorical language used in these schools of thought is based on different theoretical positions, orientations, and images of preparing mathematics for teaching. Although these metaphors are powerful and allow for different ways of thinking and speaking about preparing mathematics for teaching, they suggest that preparing mathematics for teaching is largely a one-sided process in the sense of an adaptation of the knowledge in question. To promote a more holistic understanding, an alternative metaphor is offered: preparing mathematics for teaching as ecological engineering. By using the ecological engineering metaphor, the preparation of mathematics for teaching is presented as a two-sided process that involves both the adaptation of knowledge and the modification of its environment.CAU

Mathematical knowledge for teaching and mathematics didactic knowledge : A comparative study

This paper compares and contrasts two approaches that are widely used in the English- and German-speaking discourse on mathematics teacher knowledge: ‘mathematical knowledge for teaching’ and ‘mathematics didactic knowledge’. It is proposed that these constructs are based on distinct theoretical and conceptual positions and origins. Mathematical knowledge for teaching is viewed as a utilitarian-pragmatic approach rooted in English-speaking traditions as it focuses on its use in teaching and represents a practice-based conceptualization of knowledge domains required for mathematics teaching. Mathematics didactic knowledge, on the other hand, is considered normative-descriptive as it is formulated based on didactic principles and broader theoretical perspectives, providing a theory-driven conceptualization of knowledge domains rooted in traditions of German-speaking didactics of mathematics. The paper further highlights similarities and differences in these two constructs through an examination of two central knowledge domains: specialized content knowledge (part of mathematical knowledge for teaching) and subject matter didactic knowledge (part of mathematics didactic knowledge)