TY - JOUR
T1 - Understanding and advancing graduate teaching assistants’ mathematical knowledge for teaching
AU - Musgrave, Stacy
AU - Carlson, Marilyn
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. DUE-1323753. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 Elsevier Inc.
PY - 2017/3/1
Y1 - 2017/3/1
N2 - Graduate student teaching assistants (GTAs) usually teach introductory level courses at the undergraduate level. Since GTAs constitute the majority of future mathematics faculty, their image of effective teaching and preparedness to lead instructional improvements will impact future directions in undergraduate mathematics curriculum and instruction. In this paper, we argue for the need to support GTAs in improving their mathematical meanings of foundational ideas and their ability to support productive student thinking. By investigating GTAs’ meanings for average rate of change, a key content area in precalculus and calculus, we found evidence that even mathematically sophisticated GTAs possess impoverished meanings of this key idea. We argue for the need, and highlight one approach, for supporting GTAs to improve their understanding of foundational mathematical ideas and how these ideas are learned.
AB - Graduate student teaching assistants (GTAs) usually teach introductory level courses at the undergraduate level. Since GTAs constitute the majority of future mathematics faculty, their image of effective teaching and preparedness to lead instructional improvements will impact future directions in undergraduate mathematics curriculum and instruction. In this paper, we argue for the need to support GTAs in improving their mathematical meanings of foundational ideas and their ability to support productive student thinking. By investigating GTAs’ meanings for average rate of change, a key content area in precalculus and calculus, we found evidence that even mathematically sophisticated GTAs possess impoverished meanings of this key idea. We argue for the need, and highlight one approach, for supporting GTAs to improve their understanding of foundational mathematical ideas and how these ideas are learned.
KW - Average rate of change
KW - Graduate student teaching assistant
KW - Mathematical meanings
KW - Precalculus
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U2 - 10.1016/j.jmathb.2016.12.011
DO - 10.1016/j.jmathb.2016.12.011
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85009745515
SN - 0732-3123
VL - 45
SP - 137
EP - 149
JO - Journal of Mathematical Behavior
JF - Journal of Mathematical Behavior
ER -