Abstract
Prospective teachers are expected to construct, emphasise, integrate, and make use of mathematical connections; in doing so, they acquire an understanding of mathematics that is fluid, supple, and interconnected (Evitts Dissertation Abstracts International, 65(12), 4500, 2005). Given the importance of mathematical connection making, an exploratory study was conducted to consider the ability of prospective middle-grades teachers to make mathematical connections while engaging in card-sorting activities. Twenty-eight prospective middle-grades teachers participated in both an open and closed card sort. Data were analysed using constant comparative methods to extract meta themes to describe the types of connections made. Findings indicate that these prospective teachers tended to make more procedural- and categorical-type mathematical connections and far fewer derivational or curricular mathematical connections.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 297-319 |
| Number of pages | 23 |
| Journal | Mathematics Education Research Journal |
| Volume | 23 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Sep 2011 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:Research supported, in part, by the National Science Foundation (NSF) MSP grant, HER-0227028, the Appalachian Mathematics Science Partnership. The authors would also like to acknowledge support provided by the Service, Teaching, and Research (STaR) Project in helping to facilitate the development of this manuscript. The STaR Project is funded by the NSF grant, 0922410, but the opinions expressed are those of the authors and this article does not reflect any endorsement of the results by the NSF.
Keywords
- Card sorting
- Geometry
- Mathematical connections
- Middle grades
- Teacher preparation
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- General Mathematics
- Education