Supporting Novice Mathematics Teacher Educators to Teach Ambitiously via Continuously Improved Curriculum Materials

Mathematics teaching in the United States has notoriously and historically been classified as skill and drill instruction where the main focus of mathematics teaching is procedural fluency across all grade levels. In order to change this norm, we need to seriously consider how we prepare prospective teachers and in turn, how we support those responsible for preparing prospective teachers. In this study, I investigated how a set of continuously improved curriculum materials supported novice mathematics teacher educators in teaching an elementary content course for pre-service teachers for the first time. Results show that the two instructors were able to productively set up rich, cognitively demanding tasks and respond productively to pre-service teachers' questions and comments--even those that were unanticipated by the curriculum materials. The main curricular aspects that supported these productive task set-ups and responses were targeted learning goals, descriptions of what successful students would be saying and doing during class, "scripts," rationales for each task, anticipated comments, questions, and difficulties, helpful ways to respond to students, and associated PowerPoint slides. These findings indicate that curriculum materials designed through gradual continuous improvement methods have the potential to support novice mathematics teacher educators to teach ambitiously. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]