"The Elementary Pre-Service Teachers Mathematics Project" is developing, testing, and disseminating materials to facilitate the learning of discourse-based instructional methods by undergraduate elementary pre-service teachers. These materials are helping improve the student's own mathematical understandings as well as their ability to explain the mathematical concepts to children. In addition to materials for pre-service teachers, this project is developing a handbook for college faculty teaching pre-service elementary teachers. The usefulness of these materials is being tested at four different institutions during the first year of the project. During the second year of the project, the testing is being extended to other institutions in Massachusetts. They are also running a controlled experiment at Boston University on the efficacy of the materials.
Over the two year grant period, this project is directly impacting 195 future elementary school teachers and is becoming a model for discussion-based teacher preparation. Project faculty are holding a series of workshops for faculty in Massachusetts, providing training in the use of the materials and particularly in the discourse-based pedagogy developed. With a strong emphasis on research, this project is also sharing resources and lessons learned more broadly through publications and presentations.
