Abstract
A salient feature of this study was to include in the pre-service teacher education program the requirement to do research in the instructional setting. The theoretical perspective of this research was "teacher as researcher". The purpose of t his case study was to investigate the processes through which a pre-service mathematics teacher learned how to teach by conducting research studies on mathematics teaching and learning. The study was carried out in the context of a two credit hour course called "Research in Mathematics Teaching and Learning", which was designed for senior mathematics majors. The main purpose of this course was to provide the pre-service teachers a constructivist learning environment allowing them to carry out research stu dies on the teaching and learning of mathematics. It was expected that this would lead the pre-service teachers to thinking about instruction in mathematics in greater depth, and therefore enhance their abilities in solving problems related to the teachin g of mathematics. Theoretical perspectives from symbolic interactionism and phenomenology were adopted by the researcher in an attempt to understand the conception about mathematics teaching and learning of the pre-service teacher. Qualitative research te chniques were used to collect and analyze the data. Triangulation of multiple data sources was used to validate the results. The results of this study showed that the conception about mathematics teaching and learning of pre-service teacher changed gradua lly in the process when he was conducting the research. The resulting change was nevertheless far from being an overall change. The nature and extent of change depended on the research context that the pre-service teacher had experienced. In summary, lear ning to teach can be viewed from the perspective of conceptual change and it can be concluded that, by providing a pre-service teacher opportunities to do research in instructional settings, teacher was found to have learned to teach mathematics.
| Keywords: | teacher as researcher; doing research in mathematics instructional setting; conceptualizing mathematics teaching; pre-service mathematics teacher education. |
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