Mathematics Commons^™

Conventions, Habits, And U.S. Teachers’ Meanings For Graphs, Kevin C. Moore, Jason Silverman, Teo Paoletti, Dave Liss, Stacy Musgrave

Department of Mathematics Facuty Scholarship and Creative Works

In this paper, we use relevant literature and data to motivate a more detailed look into relationships between what we perceive to be conventions common to United States (U.S.) school mathematics and individuals’ meanings for graphs and related topics. Specifically, we draw on data from pre-service (PST) and in-service (IST) teachers to characterize such relationships. We use PSTs’ responses during clinical interviews to illustrate three themes: (a) some PSTs’ responses implied practices we perceive to be conventions of U.S. school mathematics were instead inherent aspects of PSTs’ meanings; (b) some PSTs’ responses implied they understood certain practices in U.S. school …