Article
Pre-service teachers’ knowledge of algebraic thinking and the characteristics of the questions posed for students
2010 Annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association
(2010)
Abstract
In this study, we explored the relationship between the strength of pre-service teachers’ algebraic
thinking and the characteristics of the questions they posed during cognitive interviews that
focused on probing the algebraic thinking of middle school students. We developed a
performance rubric to evaluate the strength of pre-service teachers’ algebraic thinking across 130
algebra-based tasks. We used an existing coding scheme found in the literature to analyze the
characteristics of the questions pre-service teachers posed during clinical interviews. We found
that pre-service teachers with higher algebraic thinking abilities were able to pose probing
questions that uncovered student thinking through the use of follow up questions. In comparison,
pre-service teachers with lower algebraic thinking abilities asked factual questions; moving from
one question to the next without posing follow up questions to probe student thinking.
Disciplines
Publication Date
April, 2010
Citation Information
van den Kieboom, L. A., Magiera, M. T., & Moyer J. C. (2010). Pre-service teachers’ knowledge of algebraic thinking and the characteristics of the questions posed for students. Paper presented at the 2010 annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association. Retrieved from the AERA Online Paper Repository http://www.aera.net/repository.