Teaching mathematics is a complex, multi-textured activity that involves making practical moves, reflection, and decision making on a variety of levels, most frequently in real time. Math teachers simultaneously manage mathematical ideas, the particular tasks they are embedded in, and students' encounters with them. These layers of complexity often go unrecognized by novice teachers. A central challenge of the preparation of elementary mathematics teachers is to help them look inside teaching and "see" the threads that comprise it, and to support them in beginning to weave their own practice.

My goal in using records of practice with the preservice teachers in my course is to help them begin to "see" the work of mathematics teaching. I was curious about how using records of practices would help beginning teachers see teaching and what the records of practice would enable them to see.

As I describe in this website, I used four dimensions of teaching-task, tools, discourse, norms-to frame and dissect the work of teaching. My students used these dimensions and records of practice to examine the teaching of an experienced teacher, Mary Hurley, and their own.

My students engaged in three sequenced activities related to examining teaching: Watching someone else teaching else teach; Planning their own teaching; and Reflecting on their own teaching.

They began by exploring Mary Hurley's website and watching and analyzing a 30 minute clip of her introducing negative integers to her fourth and fifth grade students. They then drew on their learning about teaching to design a mathematics lesson to teach in their field classrooms. Each prospective teacher selected a pedagogical focus to emphasize in their planning and teaching. Finally, they reflected on and analyzed their own teaching drawing on the analytical tools they had built through examining Mary Hurley's classroom. The four dimensions of teaching served as the primary lens they used throughout the pieces of the assignment. Applying the four dimensions to someone else's teaching provided them with practice seeing these components of teachers' work and prepared them to consider them in their own work.

This site is designed to share how I used records of practice and the four dimensions of teaching to help prospective elementary teachers learn to see teaching. My Teaching Context provides information about me and the teacher education program I teach in. My Course provides details about my mathematics methods course for preservice elementary teachers. Watching Someone Else Teach describes how I used Mary Hurley's website to engage my students in examining teaching. Planning Their Own Teaching describes how these students designed lessons to teach in their field classrooms. Reflecting on Their Teaching provides details on their reflections on and analyses of their teaching in light of the work we had done during the semester on seeing teaching. This page provides some glimpses of what these preservice teachers were learning to see and my efforts to help them make connections to our earlier discussions.