Prospective Teachers’ Noticing of Students’ Algebraic Thinking: The Case of Pattern Generalization

Abstract

This study aimed to investigate prospective middle school mathematics teachers’ noticing of students’ algebraic thinking based on students’ correct and incorrect solutions within the context of pattern generalization. Designed as a qualitative case study, three noticing prompts were asked to 32 prospective middle school mathematics teachers. Along with it, a semi-structured interview was conducted with 8 prospective teachers out of 32 teachers. The findings of this study demonstrated that while most of the prospective teachers could attend to the students’ both correct and incorrect solution, they had difficulty in interpreting the students’ algebraic thinking. The prospective teachers even provided less evidence to interpret the algebraic thinking of the student with incorrect solution than correct solution. Finally, although a vast majority of the prospective teachers could support the algebraic thinking of the students having incorrect solution, they could not extend the algebraic thinking of the students having correct solution.