Science and Mathematics Education Commons^™

Mathematical Content Knowledge For Teaching Elementary Mathematics: A Focus On Whole-Number Concepts And Operations, Eva Thanheiser, Ian Whitacre, George J. Roy

Mathematics and Statistics Faculty Publications and Presentations

This report represents part of a recent effort to summarize the state of knowledge of prospective elementary teachers' (PTs') mathematics content knowledge and the development thereof. Extensive reviews of the research literature were conducted by a recent PME-NA Working Group across various content areas. This report focuses on whole number and operations. Research in this area is scarce. What we do know from the literature is that PTs' knowledge of whole number and operations is insufficient and in need of improvement. PTs reason about whole numbers and operations in ways that are tied to the standard algorithms. At the same …