Molly H. Fisher

Examining the Relationship Between Preservice Elementary Teachers’ Attitudes Toward Mathematics and Professional Noticing Capacities

The goal of this study was to examine the changes in preservice elementary teachers’ attitudes toward mathematics in connection with their participation in a module aimed at developing professional noticing capacities. This module, implemented in 11 mathematics methods courses at five institutions, involved practice with three interrelated components of professional noticing—attending, interpreting, and deciding. Pre- and post-assessments of participants’ mathematical attitudes and professional noticing capacities were administered to measure change in these areas. Professional noticing measures were modeled from a similar study by Jacobs et al. (Journal for Research in Mathematics Education 41: 169–202, 2010). The Attitudes Toward Mathematics Inventory (Tapia and Marsh, Academic Exchange Quarterly 8: 16–21, 2004) was used to measure change in attitudes during the pre- and post-administrations. Participants demonstrated significant growth in professional noticing capabilities and significant growth on three of four factors of the Attitudes Toward Mathematics Inventory; however, there was no significant correlation between the changes on the respective measures.

Mathematics teachers’ support and retention: using Maslow's hierarchy to understand teachers’ needs

ABSTRACT As part of a larger study, four mathematics teachers from diverse backgrounds and teaching situations report their ideas on teacher stress, mathematics teacher retention, and their feelings about the needs of mathematics teachers, as well as other information crucial to retaining quality teachers. The responses from the participants were used to develop a hierarchy of teachers’ needs that resembles Maslows hierarchy, which can be used to better support teachers in various stages of their careers. The interviews revealed both non content-specific and content-specific needs within the hierarchy. The responses show that teachers found different schools foster different stress levels and that as teachers they used a number of resources for reducing stress. Other mathematics-specific ideas are also discussed such as the amount of content and pedagogy courses required for certification.