Eliciting and Analyzing Preservice Teachers’ Mathematical Noticing

In an effort to elicit elementary preservice teachers’ mathematical noticing, mathematics teacher educators at 6 universities designed and implemented a 3-step task that used video, writing, and animation. The intent of the task was to elicit preservice teachers’ mathematical noticing—that is, noticing specific to mathematics content and how students reason about content. Preservice teachers communicated their noticing through both written accounts and self-created animations. Findings showed that the specificity of mathematical noticing differed with the medium used and that preservice teachers focused on different mathematical content across the methods sections, illuminating the importance for mathematics teacher educators understanding of the noticing practices of the preservice teachers with whom they work. This report includes implications for using the task in methods courses and modifying course instruction to develop noticing following task implementation.