Primary school teacher’s noticing of students’ mathematical thinking in problem solving

Professional noticing of students’ mathematical thinking in problem solving involves the identification of noteworthy mathematical ideas of students’ mathematical thinking and its interpretation to make decisions in the teaching of mathematics. The goal of this study is to begin to characterize pre-service primary school teachers’ noticing of students’ mathematical thinking when students solve tasks that involve proportional and non-proportional reasoning. From the analysis of how pre-service primary school teachers notice students’ mathematical thinking, we have identified an initial framework with four levels of development. This framework indicates a possible trajectory in the development of primary teachers’ professional noticing.

The research reported here has been financed in part by Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia, Dirección General de Investigación, Spain, under Grants no. EDU2008-04583, nº EDU2011- 27288 and in part by the Universidad de Alicante (Spain) under proyecto emergente nº GRE10-10.