Student Teacher Participation in Interpretative Classroom Research Projects

Abstract

An orientation towards “listening to pupils’ thinking” can promote a learning environment that is conducive and sensitive to pupils’ own mathematical sense making. This paper introduces and reflects on recent developments in German elementary teacher education programs with respect to a “listening” orientation towards mathematics teaching. The paper focuses on student teachers' professional learning processes while they collect, collectively interpret, and analyse qualitative data from primary classrooms episodes in which pupils argue mathematically. While the approach of student teacher participation in qualitative research projects does not relate to one specific study, it provides a common structure and has proven itself in a variety of different research projects co-ordinated by the authors. In this paper, data excerpts from student teachers’ self-evaluation of their professional learning with respect to pupils’ thinking and their own classroom instruction are discussed.