Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

The Role Of Covariational Reasoning In Pre-Service Teachers’ Meanings For Quadratic And Exponential Relationships, Madhavi Vishnubhotla

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

Researchers have indicated that students have difficulties recognizing quadratic and exponential change and do not maintain productive meanings for these relationships. Other researchers have documented that students are capable of developing productive meanings for mathematical ideas via covariational reasoning. This dissertation reports the results of an investigation into ways in which preservice teachers can leverage covariational reasoning to develop meanings for quadratic and exponential relationships. I collected data by engaging two preservice teachers in semi-structured clinical interviews and a semester long teaching experiment. My analyses reveal that whereas in the pre-interviews, the participants did not have meanings that supported differentiating …