Preservice-Teacher Interviews: A Tool for Motivating Mathematics Learning

Helping prospective elementary school teachers (PSTs) recognize that they have something useful to learn from university mathematics courses remains a constant challenge. The authors found that an initial content interview with the PSTs often led to the PSTs’ changing their beliefs about mathematics and about their understanding of mathematics, leading to the recognition that (a) there is something to learn beyond procedures, (b) their own knowledge is limited and they need to know more to be able to teach, and (c) engaging in the mathematical activities in their content courses will lead them to learning important content.