Science and Mathematics Education Commons^™

Prospective Teachers' Considerations During The Lesson Planning Process, Jessica A. De La Cruz

Education Department Faculty Works

This paper presents an action research project completed in a mathematics methods course for prospective elementary school teachers. The goal was to determine if instructional practices were effective at preparing teachers to use students’ thinking to inform instructional decisions. The teachers’ ability to predict students’ strategies and the teachers’ considerations during the planning process were investigated. The teachers selected a task involving the comparison of ratios, anticipated students’ strategies for completing the task, and explained their rationale. The prospective teachers effectively predicted students’ strategies; however, those student strategies were not a consideration during the task selection process for the majority.