EXPLORING PROSPECTIVE ELEMENTARY MATHEMATICS TEACHERS' KNOWLEDGE: A FOCUS ON FUNCTIONAL THINKING

The importance of students being acquainted with algebraic ideas before secondary education has been revealed in the research literature. It is therefore essential that prospective elementary teachers (PTs) be prepared to instill an early algebra perspective in their teaching. However, PTs often sho...

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Main Authors: Oliveira, Hélia (Author), Polo Blanco, Irene (Author), Henriques, Ana (Author)
Other Authors: Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad. Madrid. Spain [projects E 4276-R and PID2019-105677RB-I00]. (Contributor)
Format: EJournal Article
Published: Department of Doctoral Program on Mathematics Education, Sriwijaya University, 2021-04-12.
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042 |a dc 
100 1 0 |a Oliveira, Hélia  |e author 
100 1 0 |a Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad. Madrid. Spain [projects E  |d 4276-R and PID2019-105677RB-I00]..   |e contributor 
700 1 0 |a Polo Blanco, Irene  |e author 
700 1 0 |a Henriques, Ana  |e author 
245 0 0 |a EXPLORING PROSPECTIVE ELEMENTARY MATHEMATICS TEACHERS' KNOWLEDGE: A FOCUS ON FUNCTIONAL THINKING 
260 |b Department of Doctoral Program on Mathematics Education, Sriwijaya University,   |c 2021-04-12. 
500 |a https://ejournal.unsri.ac.id/index.php/jme/article/view/13745 
520 |a The importance of students being acquainted with algebraic ideas before secondary education has been revealed in the research literature. It is therefore essential that prospective elementary teachers (PTs) be prepared to instill an early algebra perspective in their teaching. However, PTs often show difficulties in algebra content knowledge, which need to be diagnosed aiming to assist them in developing the required knowledge to teach according to that perspective. This study aims to understand what aspects of functional thinking Spanish and Portuguese elementary PTs exhibit at the beginning of their teacher education program. The findings show that although PTs from both countries use different strategies to generalize functional relationships, the occurrence of successful strategies is low. Also, most participants provide local approaches in their interpretation of relationships between variables and reveal difficulties in understanding and connecting different representations of functions. These difficulties show that PTs lack important knowledge about functional thinking. By providing a framework concerning the functional thinking required for PTs to teach within an early algebra perspective, we shed light on a necessary step for teacher education programs to diagnose PTs' functional thinking and to assist them in developing the needed mathematical knowledge to teach accordingly. 
540 |a Copyright (c) 2021 Journal on Mathematics Education 
540 |a https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 
546 |a eng 
690 |a Early Algebra; Functional Thinking; Generalization; Prospective Teachers' Knowledge 
655 7 |a info:eu-repo/semantics/article  |2 local 
655 7 |a info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion  |2 local 
655 7 |a Peer-reviewed Article  |2 local 
786 0 |n Journal on Mathematics Education; Vol 12, No 2 (2021); 257-278 
786 0 |n 2407-0610 
786 0 |n 2087-8885 
787 0 |n https://ejournal.unsri.ac.id/index.php/jme/article/view/13745/pdf 
856 4 1 |u https://ejournal.unsri.ac.id/index.php/jme/article/view/13745/pdf  |z Get Fulltext