Past Presentations

New mentor teachers need to develop new knowledge, skills, and understandings as they transition from teaching mathematics to supporting student teachers in learning-to-teach activities. In a series of collaborative experiences, new mentor teachers learn how to extend practices of teaching mathematics to create learning-to-teach activities. Mentor teachers formed support networks by participating in these collaborative experiences.

For PSMTs, learning to notice elements of mathematics lessons involves shifting perspectives from a student-learner to a teacher of mathematics who can navigate the complexities of teaching. PSMT-led debriefings after peer teaching is one activity that teacher educators can implement for PSMTs to learn how to shift lenses.

Navigating and Negotiating Identity: "Children of God" in Latter-day Saint Scriptural and Prophetic Discourse Creating and shaping culture, religious or otherwise, happens through language. Seemingly small discursive utterances impact how people view themselves others, particularly when repeated over time. This paper addresses how the concept of being a “child of God” has been conceptualized and used rhetorically in Latter-day Saint scriptural and prophetic discourse to both fortify and dismantle boundaries between groups and individuals. Our paper builds on work by Kate Johnson, Emma Holdaway, and Amy Saunders Ross which highlighted how “children of God” was used both within Latter-day Saint discourse and discourse about race. It also builds upon Daniel Becerra’s work on theological anthropology (i.e. human nature as it relates to God) in Latter-day Saint scripture. Our examination is at once historical and literary. It is historical in the sense that it traces the evolution of thought regarding this concept from its first appearance in the book of Genesis, throughout the LDS scriptural canon, and to its most recent public use at the October 2023 General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Our examination is literary in that we also examine the rhetorical deployments to understand the culture shaping work it is intended to accomplish. For example, uses of “children of God” might focus attention to people’s divine worth, to the creation of their physical bodies, or to their moral character. We note in particular how the phrase has been used to navigate and negotiate identity among humans based on race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, and faith commitments. We conclude by describing some implications for scholarly and theological discourse that contributes to the work of reconciliation and inclusion.

Important work has created approaches to calculus based on crucial quantitative reasoning. For integration, however, the major topic of u-substitution has generally not been fully detailed in these paradigms. This paper presents a study where students were taught u-substitution from a quantitative perspective based on a three-part quantitative structure: differential quantity, integrand quantity, bounds quantity. The students reasoned about the quantitative conversions in flexible ways, and used various quantitative relationship types in their reasoning. However, reasoning about the differential quantity was difficult, and a new type of “collapse” metaphor was identified. By the end, the students had all developed a good quantitative basis for u-sub.

Research has shown how crucial quantities-based meanings are for calculus concepts. While past work has developed important quantitative approaches to integration, the major topic of u-substitution typically has not been fully detailed in these paradigms. This theoretical paper extends this past work to clearly define and elaborate u-substitution through a quantitative perspective. We use conceptual analysis based on quantities, starting with a concrete example of a solar panel producing energy. We abstract from this example to define u-substitution as a transformation from one quantitative relationship, via nested multivariation, to another quantitative relationship. We also detail a three-part structure within this transformation.

Abstract/Description: Noticing activities are abundant in teacher education. We will discuss an implicit methodology used by many that may mask key details about teachers' professional noticing skills. We will engage in two activities to demonstrate the importance of interrelating noticing skills.

Abstract/Description: We will discuss findings from employing a methodology to study student teachers interrelated professional noticing skills, differences in findings when studying professional noticing as individual skills, and share implications for developing preservice mathematics teacher educators professional noticing.

Abstract/Description: Mathematics teachers rely heavily on their curricular reasoning (CR) when making decisions regarding curriculum. In this session, we highlight the Instructional Pyramid model for CR and discuss approaches teacher educators can use to enhance teachers' CR.

Abstract/Description: We report on how teachers use the CCSSM to make decisions about what they teach or do not teach. This has implications for mathematics teacher educators as we help preservice teachers learn to use policy documents to improve student learning.

Abstract/Description: The common practice of focusing on noticing a singular event is too simplified to account for teachers’ noticing during responsive teaching. We unpack the complexity of noticing WRT (with respect to) during responsive teaching and the iterative noticing it entails.