Building Foundations for Pre-Service Teachers in Mathematics

Abstract

Recent studies suggest that many pre-service and in-service elementary school teachers are not equipped with the adequate content knowledge required to teach elementary mathematics. This research study compared 3 sections of Mathematics for Elementary School Teachers courses and investigated student understandings of fraction multiplication and division. One of the sections was instructed using a traditional method of teaching, while the other two sections used concrete hands-on models of real-life applications. The analysis shows that the concrete models of real life applications improved pre-service teachers' conceptual understanding of operations of fractions and improved their ability to create fraction story problems.