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Abstract:
Occidental
College has no mathematics content or methods course requirement for its
multiple subject credential program for elementary teachers.
The course discussed here was developed in Spring 1997 in
response to the needs expressed by students in the Masters of Arts in
Teaching program who wanted additional experience with mathematics
related teaching issues. The
course needed to address the content and pedagogical needs of the
students, and had to service a wide range of students from those who had
no college mathematics courses all the way to mathematics majors, while
being a course at the Master’s level.
Thus, the focus I chose for the course was on national
mathematics standards, pedagogy related to the learning of mathematics,
and research issues in elementary mathematics learning.
The
cornerstone of the academic year course is an Action Research Project
that the students design, implement, analyze results of, and then report
on. The action research
project spans the entire semester and can be on a content or affective
issues in elementary mathematics learning and is conducted in their
student teaching classroom.
The
texts for the class have consisted of NCTM’s Principles and Standards and Research
Ideas for the Classroom: Early
Childhood Mathematics along with Zaslavsky’s Fear of Math – How to Get Over It and Get On with Your Life.
Students read, reflect, address mathematics content and pedagogy
issues in the areas focused on in the Standards and Research Ideas
books.
This
documentation includes all the materials related to the Action Research
Project assignment and gives a taste of other components of the course.
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